GENERATION OF ANIMALS, IV. vi.-vii. 



physical condition when the fetations are becom- 

 ing sizable is that the growth of the fetation 

 needs more nourishment than that afforded bv the 

 residue. There are some few women Mho are in 

 better physical condition during pregnancy. This 

 occurs with those whose bodies contain but small 

 amounts of residue, and as a result this is com- 

 pletely used up together with the nourishment that 

 goes to the embrA'o. 



We now have to treat of the mola uteri,'^ as it is VII 

 called. This occurs in women occasionally only, but it *''^° "''^ 

 does occur in some during pregnancy. Thev bring 

 forth a " mola." It has been known to happen, in 

 the case of a woman who has had intercourse and 

 thinks she has conceived, that her figure has increased 

 to begin with, and all the rest has proceeded as ex- 

 pected, but when the time for her delivery was at 

 hand, she has neither brought anything to birth nor 

 yet has the size of her girth decreased ; instead, she 

 has continued in that condition for three or four vears, 

 till she was seized with dysentery which brought her 

 to a dangerous pass, and then she has produced a 

 flesh}- mass, known as a " mola." Sometimes, also, 

 this condition lasts on into old age and persists until 

 death. In such instances the objects which make 

 their way out of the body are so hard that it is diffi- 

 cult to cut them in two even by means of an iron edge. 

 Well, I have spoken in the Problems ^ of the cause of 

 this occurrence ; the case of the fetation in the womb 

 is exactly the same as that of meat, when it is under- 

 cooked ; and it is due not to heat, as some people 

 allege, but rather to weakness of heat (because it 

 looks as though Nature in these cases suffers from 



* This reference cannot be found. 



465 



