Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

270 Aristotle and his schoolknown in the Lyceum, as is shown by the abundant use made of them inthe first books of the extant Problemata physica. The fact that ‘Hist. an. 10’shows greater receptivity to medical doctrine than other Aristotelian worksmay be related to the fact that, as Balme has observed, ‘Hist. an. 10’ doesdisplay certain characteristics of Problemata-literature, and the text maywell be identical to, or a version of, what Aristotle refers to (in Gen. an.775 b 36–7) as a section of ‘the Problems’ where a more elaborate discussionof the cause of mola uteri is said to have taken place. It could be seen asan elaborate answer to the question ‘why is it that women often do notconceive after intercourse?’ – a question which has indeed made its wayinto later doxographical literature 46 – although its length is rather excessivecompared with most other Problemata chapters.What is there to be said, in the light of these considerations, about the objectionsto Aristotelian authorship raised by earlier scholars? Leaving asidearguments about style and indebtedness to Hippocratic doctrines, which areinconclusive, 47 the main difficulties are the view that the female contributes‘seed’ to generation and the view that air (pneuma) is needed to draw theseed into the uterus. With regard to the first difficulty, Balme and Föllingerhave pointed out that also in Generation of Animals Aristotle frequentlycalls the female contribution ‘seed’, or ‘seed-like’ , 48 whichis understandable when one considers that for Aristotle both the menstrualdischarge and the sperm have the same material origin. In fact, Aristotleseems to waver on the precise formulation, and the view which he is reallykeen to dismiss in Generation of Animals is that the female seed is of exactlythe same nature as the male 49 – a view which he attributes to other thinkersbut which is not expressed, at least not explicitly, in ‘Hist. an. 10’. Thefact that in ‘Hist. an. 10’ this female contribution remains an unspecifiedfluid, whereas it is identified as menstrual blood in Generation of Animals,which Balme regards as a later ‘refinement’, need not be a serious problemas long as one accepts that ‘Hist. an. 10’ does not intend to give a full,accurate account of normal, successful reproduction. This would explain46 See, e.g., Aëtius 5.9 and 5.14 (Diels, Dox. Graec.,pp.421 and 424). For the relation between Problemataand doxography see Mansfeld (1993) 311–82.47 See the discussion of the linguistic evidence by Louis (1964–9) vol. iii, 151–2; Balme (1985) 193–4;and Föllinger (1996) 146–7.48 E.g. in 727 b 7; 746 b 28; 771 b 22–3; 774 a 22. To the passages already quoted by Balme andFöllinger, Gen. an. 747 a 13ff. should be added, where the mechanism of a certain type of fertilitytest applied to women (rubbing colours on to their eyes and then seeing whether they colour thesaliva) is explained by Aristotle by reference to the fact that the area around the eyes is the most‘seedlike’ .49 727 b 7.