Medicine and philosophy - Classical Homeopathy Online

272 Aristotle and his schoolhas been mixed ...if the emission from both has not been mixed’), 57 butthis is in a rather special context (the discussion of the mola uteri) and againit does not specify what the contribution of each partner consists in. Ontwo other occasions, however, it is said that the woman draws in ‘what shehas been given’ , 58 which does not really suggestthat what is drawn in is a mixture of two contributions from both sides.It seems that ‘Hist. an. 10’ contains no statement that really contradictsthe orthodox Aristotelian view that conception takes place when male seedand female menstrual blood meet. To be sure, this view is nowhere expressedor even suggested in ‘Hist. an. 10’; but, as mentioned above, ‘Hist. an. 10’does not offer, and probably does not intend to offer, a complete, profound,philosophically satisfactory account of animal reproduction; this is why itdoes not discuss the reproductive role of menstrual blood, why it doesnot say what exactly happens when male and female contribution meet,and why it does not speak in terms of ‘form’ and ‘matter’. And to sayemphatically – as the author of ‘Hist. an. 10’ does – that the female alsocontributes to generation, is not inconsistent with this orthodox view fromGeneration of Animals.Yet one may object that even if it is not a problem that the author of‘Hist. an. 10’ calls the female contribution ‘seed’, the fact remains that heseems to say that the female contribution is ejaculated in a moment ofsexual excitement, which is not what Aristotle says about menstrual bloodin Generation of Animals. 59 This makes it very hard to believe that the femalecontribution, as depicted in ‘Hist. an. 10’, would have to be identified afterall with menstrual blood. 60 Yet perhaps this depends on what one meansby ‘contribution’: even in Generation of Animals Aristotle concedes thatthe female ejaculation during intercourse facilitates conception in that itcauses the mouth of the uterus to open. 61 So although the fluid itself does57 ’ [sic] ’ (tr. Balme).58 635 b 2; 637 a 2.59 Even though, as Balme notes (1985, 198), 739 a 28 allows that some of the menstrual blood mayalready be outside the uterus when conception takes place; and Aristotle sometimes uses the verb‘ejaculate’ for menstrual discharge (Gen. an. 748 a 21). See also Hist. an. 9 (7) 582 b12ff. on the various possible positions of menstrual blood at conception.60 Related to this is the difficulty that in Gen. an. 727 b 7–11, Aristotle seems to think that the sexual actdoes not influence fertility, whereas the author of ‘Hist. an. 10’, as we have seen, regards ‘keeping thesame pace’ as a very important, indeed a crucial factor for conception (636 b 15–23).However, it seems that the author of ‘Hist. an. 10’ does envisage the situation referred to in Gen. an.727 b 9–11, for becomes relevant only after the other conditions for male and femalefertility have been met. Nor does the author of ‘Hist. an. 10’ assume that ejaculation is necessarilyaccompanied by pleasure.61 Gen. an. 739 a 32ff.