Page - 1492 - in The Complete Aristotle

for a long time, for in its nature it is neither perfect nor altogether a foreign body.) It is want of concoction that is the reason of its hardness, as with half- cooked meat, for this half-dressing of meat is also a sort of want of concoction. A difficulty is raised as to why this does not occur in other animals, unless indeed it does occur and has entirely escaped observation. We must suppose the reason to be that woman alone among animals is subject to troubles of the uterus, and alone has a superfluous amount of catamenia and is unable to concoct them; when, then, the embryo has been formed of a liquid hard to concoct, then comes the so-called mola into being, and this happens naturally in women alone or at any rate more than in other animals. < div id=“section50” class=“section” title=“8”> 8 Milk is formed in the females of all internally viviparous animals, becoming useful for the time of birth. For Nature has made it for the sake of the nourishment of animals after birth, so that it may neither fail at this time at all nor yet be at all superfluous; this is just what we find happening, unless anything chance contrary to Nature. In the other animals the period of gestation does not vary, and so the milk is concocted in time to suit this moment, but in man, since there are several times of birth, it must be ready at the first of these; hence in women the milk is useless before the seventh month and only then becomes useful. That it is only concocted at the last stages is what we should expect to happen also as being due to a necessary cause. For at first such residual matter when secreted is used up for the development of the embryo; now the nutritious part in all things is the sweetest and the most concocted, and thus when all such elements are removed what remains must become of necessity bitter and ill-flavoured. As the embryo is perfecting, the residual matter left over increases in quantity because the part consumed by the embryo is less; it is also sweeter since the easily concocted part is less drawn away from it. For it is no longer expended on moulding the embryo but only on slightly increasing its growth, it being now fixed because it has reached perfection (for in a sense there is a perfection even of an embryo). Therefore it comes forth from the mother and changes its mode of development, as now possessing what belongs to it; and no longer takes that which does not belong to it; and it is at this season that the milk becomes useful. The milk collects in the upper part of the body and the breasts because of 1492