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CHAPTER XL 



\ 



Containing the History of the dges, the Temperaments, and the Varieties of 

 the Human Species / of Death, and Putrefaction, 



CCXXIV. Of infancy. The epidermis of the new-born babe thickens, 

 the redness of the skin grows paler, the wrinkles are effaced, the soft 

 down which covered the face, falls and disappears, the buttocks swell out 

 and soon conceal the opening* of the rectum. During the first months of 

 life, it seems to need nothing but nourishment and sleep. In the mean, 

 while, the understanding is beginning to form, it looks fixedly at objects, 

 and seeks to take cognizance of all the bodies that surround it. Confin- 

 ed, at first, to the uneasy sensations, which it expresses by almost continu- 

 al tears, its existence becomes less painful, as it grows accustomed to the 

 impressions of outward things upon its delicate organs. Towards the 

 middle of the second month, it becomes capable of agreeable sensations. 

 If it feels them before that time, at least it is only then that it begins to 

 express them by laughing*. 



CCXXV. Dentition. Towards the end of the seventh monthf, the mid- 

 dle incisor teeth of the upper jaw, cut through the substance of the gums: 

 a little while after, the corresponding incisors of the lower jaw show 

 themselves : next, the lateral incisors of the upper jaw, those of the low- 

 er, then the cuspidati, in the same order. At the age between eighteen 

 months and two years, the small molar teeth appear, but in reversed or- 

 der, those of the lower preceecling those of the upper jaw. When these 

 molar teeth have come through, the first dentition is complete ; the life 

 of the child is more secure : it was before very uncertain, since the calcu- 

 lations of the probable duration of human life show, that a third of the 

 children born at any given time, die before the age of twenty-three months. 

 Convulsions and diarrheas are the most fatal accidents attending difficult 

 dentition. To these twenty teeth are added two new grinders in each 

 jaw, when the child has reached the end of his fourth year. These last 



* At Hercules risus praecox ille et celerrimus, ante quadraffesimum diem nulli datur. 

 Plin. Hist. Nat. Pr<ef. ad lib. VIII. 



t It would be very difficult to say, why a tertian fever often terminates of itself, when 

 it has reached its seventh paroxysm, whilst a continued fever is judged of by critical 

 evacuations, in seven, fourteen, or twenty-one days ; why delivery happens at the end 

 of nine months : why the first teething- begins at seven months old, the second, at seven 

 years; why puberty shows itself, towards the fourteenth year, and menstruation is re- 

 peated at determinate periods. Nature appears to subject" herself in all her acts, to cer- 

 tain periods, which observation may ascertain, without any possibility of arriving- at u 

 knowledge of the causes of these phenomena so easy to establish. Because their mani- 

 festation is corelative to certain numerical terms, we are not to put faith, like Py- 

 thagoras, in the power of numbers, and believe that the number 3 and the numbers 7 

 and 9 enslave all nature to their supreme influence. We find traces of this ancient 

 error in all sciences, in all religions, even in those of enlightened nations. # 



