The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  49 · Just as with all animals a change of action follows a change of circumstance, so also a change of [5] character follows a change of action, and often some portions of the physical frame undergo a change, as occurs in the case of birds. Hens, for instance, when they have beaten the cock in a fight, will crow like the cock and endeavour to tread him; the crest rises up on their head and the tail-feathers on [10] the rump, so that it becomes difficult to recognize that they are hens; in some cases there is a growth of small spurs. On the death of a hen a cock has been seen to undertake the maternal duties, leading the chickens about and providing them with [15] food, and so intent upon these duties as to cease crowing and indulging in his sexual propensities. Some cock-birds are congenitally so feminine that they will submit to other males who attempt to tread them.

  50 · Some animals change their form and character, not only at certain ages [20] and at certain seasons, but in consequence of being castrated; and all animals possessed of testicles may be submitted to this operation. Birds have their testicles inside, and oviparous quadrupeds close to the loins; and of viviparous animals that walk some have them inside, and most have them outside, but all have them at the lower end of the belly. Birds are castrated at the rump at the part where the two [25] sexes unite in copulation. If you burn this twice or thrice with hot irons, then, if the bird be full-grown, his crest grows sallow, he ceases to crow, and foregoes sexual activity; but if you cauterize the bird when young, none of these male attributes or propensities will come to him as he grows up. The case is the same with men: if you [30] mutilate them in boyhood, the later-growing hair never comes, and the voice never changes but remains high-pitched; if they be mutilated in early manhood, the late [632a1] growths of hair quit them except the growth on the groin, and that diminishes but does not entirely depart. The congenital growths of hair never fall out, for a eunuch [5] never goes bald. In the case of all castrated or mutilated male quadrupeds the voice changes to the feminine voice. All other quadrupeds when castrated, unless the operation be performed when they are young, invariably die; but in the case of boars, and in their case only, the age at which the operation is performed produces no difference. All animals, if operated on when they are young, become bigger and [10] better looking than their unmutilated fellows; if they be mutilated when full-grown, they do not take on any increase of size. If stags be mutilated when, by reason of their age, they have as yet no horns, they never grow horns at all; if they be mutilated when they have horns, the horns remain unchanged in size, and the animal does not lose them. Calves are mutilated when a year old; otherwise, they [15] turn out uglier and smaller. Steers are mutilated in the following way: they turn the animal over on its back, cut a little off the scrotum at the lower end, and squeeze out the testicles, then push back the roots of them as far as they can, and stop up the [20] incision with hair to give an outlet to suppurating matter; if inflammation ensues, they cauterize the scrotum and put on a plaster. If a full-grown bull be mutilated, he can still apparently generate off-spring. The ovaries of sows are excised with the view of quenching in them sexual appetites and of stimulating fatness. The sow has first to be kept two days without food, and, after being hung up by the hind legs, it is [25] operated on; they cut the lower belly, about the place where the boars have their testicles, for it is there that the ovary grows, adhering to the two divisions of the womb; they cut off a little piece and stitch up the incision. Female camels are mutilated when they are wanted for war purposes, and are mutilated to prevent [30] their being got with young. Some of the inhabitants of the interior have as many as three thousand camels: when they run, they run, in consequence of the length of their stride, much quicker than the horses of Nisaea. As a general rule, mutilated animals grow to a greater length than the unmutilated.

  [632b1] All animals that ruminate derive profit and pleasure from the process of rumination, as they do from the process of eating. It is the animals that lack the upper teeth that ruminate, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. In the case of wild animals no observation has yet been made, except in the case of animals that are occasionally domesticated, such as the stag, and it chews the cud. All animals that [5] ruminate generally do so when lying down on the ground. They carry on the process to the greatest extent in winter, and stall-fed ruminants carry it on for about seven months in the year; beasts that go in herds, as they get their food out of doors, ruminate to a lesser degree and over a lesser period. Some ambidentates also [10] ruminate; as, for instance, the Pontic mice, and the fish which from the habit is by some called ‘the Ruminant’, as well as other fish.

  Long-limbed animals have loose faeces, and broadchested animals vomit with comparative facility, and these remarks are, in a general way, applicable to quadrupeds, birds, and men.

  [15] 49B · A considerable number of birds change according to season the colour of their plumage and their note; as, for instance, the owzel becomes yellow instead of black, and its note gets altered, for in summer it has a musical note and in winter a discordant chatter. The thrush also changes its colour; about the throat it is marked in winter with speckles, in summer spotted: however, it never alters its note. [20] The nightingale, when the hills are taking on verdure, sings continually for fifteen days and fifteen nights; afterwards it sings, but not continuously.22 As summer advances it has a different song, not so varied as before, nor so quick and modulated, but simple; it also changes its colour, and in Italy about this season it goes by [25] a different name. It goes into hiding, and is consequently visible only for a brief period.

  The redbreast and the so-called redstart change into one another; the former is a winter bird, the latter a summer one, and the difference between them is [30] practically limited to the coloration of their plumage. In the same way with the beccafico and the blackcap; these change into one another. The beccafico appears about autumn, and the blackcap as soon as autumn has ended. These birds, also, [633a1] differ from one another only in colour and note; that it is the same bird is shown by the fact that at the period when the change is in progress each one has been seen with the change as yet incomplete and not yet gone over to the other kind. It is not so [5] very strange that in these cases there is a change in note and in plumage, for even the ring-dove ceases to coo in winter, and recommences cooing when spring comes in; in winter, however, when fine weather has succeeded to very stormy weather, this bird has been known to give its cooing note, to the astonishment of the experts. As a general rule, birds sing most loudly and most diversely in the pairing season. [10] The cuckoo changes its colour, and its note is not23 clearly heard for a short time previous to its departure. It departs about the rising of the dog-star, and it reappears from springtime to the rising of the dog-star. At the rise of this star the bird called by some oenanthe disappears, and reappears when it is setting: thus [15] keeping clear at one time of cold, and at another time of heat. The hoopoe also changes its colour and appearance, as Aeschylus has represented in the following lines:—

  The Hoopoe, witness to his own distress, [20]

  Is clad by Zeus in variable dress:—

  Now a brave mountain-bird, with knightly crest,

  Now in the white hawk’s silver plumage drest;

  For, timely changing, on the hawk’s white wing

  He greets the apparition of the Spring.

  Thus twofold form and colour are conferred,

  In youth and age, upon the selfsame bird. [25]

  The spangled raiment marks his youthful days,

  The argent his maturity displays;

  And when the fields are yellow with ripe corn

  Again his particoloured plumes are worn.

  But evermore, in sullen discontent,

  He seeks the lonely hills, in self-sought banishment.

  [30] Of birds, some take a dust-bath, some take a water-bath, and some take neither the one bath nor the other. Birds that do not fly but keep on the ground take [633b1] the dust-bath, as for instance the hen, the partridge, the francolin, the lark
, the pheasant; some of the straight-taloned birds, such as live on the banks of a river, in marshes, or by the sea, take a water-bath; some birds take both the dust-bath and the water-bath, as for instance the pigeon and the sparrow; of the crooked-taloned [5] birds the greater part take neither. So much for the ways of the above-mentioned,—but some birds have a peculiar habit of making a noise at their hinder quarters, as, for instance, the turtle-dove; and they make a violent movement of their tails at the same time that they produce this sound.

  BOOK X1

  [10] 1 · As a man and a woman advance in age, they may continue to have intercourse with one another and yet produce no children; the cause of this is to be found sometimes in both partners, sometimes in one only. First, in the case of the female, the state of the womb must be considered so that if the cause lies there the [15] womb may receive treatment, and if it does not attention may be paid to another one of the causes.

  Now in the case of any other part, it is plain that2 it is healthy if it performs its function satisfactorily and gives no pain and is not exhausted after functioning: e.g. an eye is healthy when it does not produce pus and can see and after seeing is not disturbed and incapable of seeing again. Thus the womb too is healthy if it does not [20] cause pain and performs its proper function satisfactorily and after functioning is not incapacitated or exhausted.

  It is said that even a womb not in good condition may nevertheless be able to [25] perform its function well and painlessly, if it is not impaired in respect of its function—just as nothing prevents3 an eye from seeing accurately even when not all its parts are in a good condition or there is a stye in it. Similarly, if a womb is in good condition in its essential region, it will not be harmed with regard to its function.

  [634a1] Now if the womb is to be in good condition, it must, first of all, not move from place to place but be in a uniform position; but it must be able to move further away without being affected or giving pain, and not be too insensitive to the touch. It is [5] not difficult to decide if this is the case. That the womb should have such a character is clear from the following considerations: if it does not come close enough, it will not be capable of drawing matter up (for the place from which it must receive the matter will be distant from it); but if it remains close and is not capable of receding further away, it will be less responsive because of being [10] continually touched, so that it will not open quickly—something which it must do vigorously and with prompt obedience.

  The womb must have these characteristics, and a womb which lacks them requires some form of treatment. In addition, menstruation must occur properly, i.e. at equidistant intervals and not irregularly, and with the body in a healthy state; for when it occurs in this way it indicates that the womb is well adapted to opening [15] and to receiving fluid from the body whenever the body provides it. When menstruation occurs too frequently or too infrequently or irregularly, and the rest of the body is healthy and does not act as a contributory cause, this condition must be due to the womb: either the womb is unresponsive and so does not open at the proper [20] time and admits only a little fluid, or else it draws in too much because of some inflammation, thus showing that it requires treatment—just like the eyes, the bladder, the stomach, and the rest. For all these parts, when inflamed, draw in the fluid which is naturally secreted in those places, but not in the proper condition or [25] amount. Similarly, when the womb releases too much fluid, that indicates an inflamed condition—if the fluid is similar to but more abundant than what is normal. If it is dissimilar from and more putrid than that which flows in healthy women, then that is quite clearly an affliction; for certain pains will necessarily [30] appear as symptoms when the womb is not in the right condition. (But even in healthy women the ‘whites’ flow in putrid form, in some cases at the start of the menstrual period but usually at its end.) If a woman’s menstrual fluids are more putrid than those of healthy women, or are disorderly—too much or too little—she [35] is in need of treatment; for these conditions are obstacles to reproduction. But if the periods are simply irregular and not equidistant, the condition is less of an impediment, although it indicates that the state of the womb is changing and not always remaining uniform. That condition can harm women who are of good constitution with regard to conception, but it is not a disease; it is the sort of condition which will right itself even without treatment, provided that the woman [634b1] herself does not do anything to exacerbate it.

  If the menstrual flow changes in frequency or in amount while the rest of the body is not in a constant state but sometimes more moist and sometimes more dry, then the womb is not the cause but is bound itself to follow the state of the body, [5] admitting and releasing its fluids in proportion. If the womb does this when the body is healthy but changing, no treatment is required; and if the body is in poor health, and the womb either releases too little (because the residue is expended elsewhere, where the body ails) or ejects too much (because the body discharges [10] there), then this signifies not that the womb itself requires treatment, but that the body does. For when the menstrual flow changes with the condition of the body, that shows that the cause does not lie in the womb but that the womb remains healthy.

  The womb is sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger; it is sometimes more [15] moist, sometimes more dry. The menstrual flow is greater when the body of the womb is greater, less when it is less, more watery when it is moist, more bloody when it is dry. The flow begins with milky ‘whites’, which remain odourless; but the rest of [20] it is red, becoming whiter at the end when the flow is just about to cease.4 The ‘whites’ then have an odour, but not of putrefaction—it is more acrid and heavy— nor of pus; and there is no decay, though there is a high temperature, when the signs [25] occur in this way. Women in whom menstruation occurs in this fashion have their wombs in the right state for reproduction.

  2 · We must first see if these conditions are satisfactorily met, and then consider the condition of the neck of the womb. This must be straight, otherwise the [30] womb will not draw the semen into itself; for women too emit into the region in front of the womb, as is clear when they have complete erotic dreams. For then that part needs treatment, being in a moist state just as if they had been with a man—for the man too emits here, into the same place and not into the inside of the womb. But [35] when emission takes place here, the womb, like a nose, draws it in with the breath. That is why women may conceive while copulating in any of the positions; for in every case5 the semen is emitted, both by them and by men, into the region in front [40] of the womb, whereas if it were emitted into the womb, they would not conceive after every form of copulation.

  But if the womb does not look straight forward, but inclines towards the [635a1] buttocks or the groin or the abdomen, it is impossible to conceive for the aforementioned reason—it could not draw up the semen. If the womb is firmly set in such a position, either by nature or as the result of disease, the condition is incurable; but if there is a rupture, either natural or caused by some disease which [5] has contracted the womb as the result of inflammation, the condition. . .6

  If a woman is going to become pregnant, the neck of the womb must, as we have said, be straight; and in addition the womb must open properly. By properly I mean that it should be such that when menstruation begins the neck is softer to the [10] touch than before and is not noticeably dilated. But if . . .7 when it is in this state, the first signs, the ‘whites’, should show themselves. When the signs are somewhat fleshy in colour, the womb will be noticeably distended without any pain, whether it is touched or not, and it will neither be unresponsive nor have its neck in an unusual [15] condition. When menstruation ceases, the neck should be very dilated and dry (but not hard) for a full day and a half or even for two days. For when menstruation occurs in this way, it indicates that the womb is in a proper condition and is performing its function, and also, because the neck is not immediately distended but [20] becomes soft, that it relaxes at the same time as the rest of the body, and do
es not impede but first expels the fluid from the neck itself; but when the body emits a greater amount, it is distended—and that is a mark of a healthy condition of the [25] neck. When the signs have ceased, the womb indicates, by not closing up at once, that . . .8 it is becoming empty, dry, and parched, and that there is nothing left in the passage.