General Introduction
General Introduction
Four of the five treatises in this volume deal with human reproduction (Generation, Nature of the Child) and disorders of the female reproductive apparatus (Nature of Women, Barrenness), while the fifth (Diseases IV) is devoted to expounding a general theory of physiology and pathology.1
Generation explains the origin of the generative fluids in the male and female parent, and how their union in the uterus determines specific features and weaknesses in individual offspring. Nature of the Child follows the development of the fetus from conception down to its birth, promulgating a detailed speculative system of embryology based on the roles played by breath, blood, and heat in the growth, differentiation, and finally birth of the fetus. Diseases IV puts forth a four-humor (bile, blood, water, phlegm) theory of bodily function which attempts to explain how the pattern of ingestion, digestion and excretion of the specific humors leads in the case of a proper balance to health, but if lacking balance to disease.
Nature of Women is a collection of gynecological texts arranged in two rounds, each of which begins with a