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Aristotle's Book Of Problems, a non-fiction book by Aristotle |
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Of The Paps And Dugs |
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_ Q. Why are the paps placed upon the breasts? A. Because the breast is the seat of the heart, which is most hot; and therefore the paps grow there, to the end that the menses being conveyed thither as being near the heat of the heart, should the sooner be digested, perfected and converted with the matter and substance of the milk. Q. Why are the paps below the breasts in beasts, and above the breast in women? A. Because woman goes upright, and has two legs only; and therefore if her paps were below her breasts, they would hinder her going; but beasts having four feet prevents that inconveniency. Q. Whether are great, small or middle-sized paps best for children to suck? A. In great ones the heat is dispersed, there is no good digestion of the milk; but in small ones the power and force is strong, because a virtue united is strongest; and by consequence there is a good digestion for the milk. Q. Why have not men as great paps and breasts as women? A. Because men have not monthly terms, and therefore have no vessel deputed for them. Q. Why do the paps of young women begin to grow about thirteen or fifteen years of age? A. Because then the flowers have no course to the teats, by which the young one is nourished, but follow their ordinary course and therefore wax soft. Q. Why hath a woman who is with child of a boy, the right pap harder than the left? A. Because the male child is conceived in the right side of the mother; and therefore the flowers do run to the right pap, and make it hard. Q. Why doth it show weakness of the child, when the milk doth drop out of the paps before the woman is delivered? A. Because the milk is the proper nutriment of the child in the womb of its mother, therefore if the milk run out, it is a token that the child is not nourished, and consequently is weak. Q. Why do the hardness of the paps betoken the health of the child in the womb? A. Because the flowers are converted into milk, and thereby strength is signified. Q. Why are women's paps hard when they be with child, and soft at other times? A. Because they swell then, and are puffed, and the great moisture which proceeds from the flowers doth run into the paps, which at other seasons remaineth in the matrix and womb, and is expelled by the place deputed for that end. Q. By what means doth the milk of the paps come to the matrix or womb? A. There is a certain knitting and coupling of the paps with the womb, and there are certain veins which the midwives do cut in the time of the birth of the child, and by those veins the milk flows in at the navel of the child, and so it receives nourishment by the navel. Q. Why is it a sign of a male child in the womb when the milk that runneth out of a woman's breast is thick, and not much, and of a female when it is thin? A. Because a woman that goeth with a boy hath a great heat in her, which doth perfect the milk and make it thick; but she who goes with a girl hath not so much heat, and therefore the milk is undigested, imperfect, watery and thin, and will swim above the water if it be put into it. Q. Why is the milk white, seeing the flowers are red, of which it is engendered? A. Because blood which is well purged and concocted becomes white, as appeareth in flesh whose proper colour is white, and being boiled, is white. Also, because every humour which is engendered of the body, is made like unto that part in colour where it is engendered as near as it can be; but because the flesh of the paps is white, therefore the colour of the milk is white. Q. Why doth a cow give milk more abundantly than other beasts? A. Because she is a great eating beast, where there is much monthly superfluity engendered, there is much milk; because it is nothing else but the blood purged and tried. Q. Why is not milk wholesome? A. 1. Because it curdeth in the stomach, whereof an evil breath is bred. 2. Because the milk doth grow sour in the stomach, where evil humours are bred, and infect the breath. Q. Why is milk bad for such as have the headache? A. Because it is easily turned into great fumosities, and hath much terrestrial substance in it, the which ascending, doth cause the headache. Q. Why is milk fit nutriment for infants? A. Because it is a natural and usual food, and they were nourished by the same in the womb. Q. Why are the white-meats made of a newly milked cow good? A. Because milk at that time is very springy, expels fumosities, and, as it were, purges at that time. Q. Why is the milk naught for the child, if the woman giving suck uses carnal copulation? A. Because in time of carnal copulation, the best part of the milk goes to the seed vessels, and to the womb, and the worst remain in the paps, which hurts the child. Q. Why do physicians forbid the eating of fish and milk at the same time? A. Because they produce a leprosy, and because they are phlegmatic. Q. Why have not birds and fish milk and paps? A. Because paps would hinder the flight of birds. And although fish have neither paps nor milk, the females cast much spawn, which the male touches with a small gut, and causes their kind to continue in succession. _ |
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