How Babies Develop

We've been looking at the Medieval theories of women's reproductive systems and conception, and now it's time to see how they thought the fetus developed into a human being.

One point made in the De Secreta Mulierum, "Of the Secrets of Women," is that the fetus uses as a template (my word) not the limbs and physical features of the parents, because if a parent is deformed or blind the baby does not come out deformed or blind. Therefore, the template or "starting point" (again, my term) for a fetus must be:

 ...drawn from the four principal members, namely the cerebrum, heart, liver, and female womb or male testicles, and as a consequence it is in these members and not in other parts of the body that the fetus is said to resemble the parents.

So through what stages of development will the fetus go? You will be interested to know that:

The first matter received in the womb has the nature of milk for the first six days, for the natural heat in the male sperm and in the womb causes it to become white as milk. Then that matter is changed to the nature or color of blood that is thickened, as if it were well cooked, and this lasts nine days. During the next twelve days the members of the fetus begin to be formed.

Which organs develop first? Some say the liver, but the author of the Secreta agrees with Aristotle that it must be the heart, since the heart is "the first to live and the last to die." The heart is followed by the liver, then cerebrum, then sexual organs, etc. We also learn:

Note that with respect to the formation of the fetus the face comes first, that is of the extrinsic members, because the face of a human being is the noblest of these members.

After 33 days the form of a male or female appears, and after forty days the human nature is complete and the infant grows and opens his mouth, and his bones begin to enlarge from his natural heat.

Besides what is happening inside the womb, there are external forces that affect the fetus. Tomorrow we will look at how astrology is involved with fetal development.

Whence Do Babies Come?

Before modern medicine and studies of biology, theories of how babies developed in utero were "best guesses" based on what was observable externally. Yesterday's post related the notion that conception takes place when the seed from the father is exposed to the menses of the mother, which essentially is "food" that the seed uses to produce a baby. (This was opposed to Aristotle, who believed that the menses was the sole generating factor of the baby.)

A debate over the exact method of conception/gestation was explained in De Secreta mulierum, "Of the Secrets of Women":

Note that there is a controversy between medical authorities and philosophers, for philosophers say that the male seed has the same relationship to the female menses as an artificer does to his work. For just as a carpenter alone is the efficient cause, and the house is the effect, in that he alters and disposes the matter of the house, so the male seed alters the female menses into the form of a human being. ...

The medical authorities say the opposite, however, because man is made from the most noble material, and thus the male seed must enter the fetus materially, because the female menses is a superfluity of the second digestion and the male seed is better cooked and digested. Therefore it is necessary that it enter into the matter and substance of the fetus, for it is seen that sometimes the fetus resembles the father in genitals and in other ways, and this would be impossible if sperm were not incorporated materially. [translation by Helen Rodnite Lemay]

So philosophers (mostly male) believed that the male's seed is in the role of an artist and shapes the baby using material found inside the mother. Those who make a more clinical study of the human body were coming from what they observe of other creatures' life cycles, and believed that both bodies produced an amalgam that could become male or female. In other words:

The doctors say further that in the male seed there is a certain generating spirit which penetrates the entire seminal mass, and this spirit has the power to form all members. Just as a smith fashions iron with a hammer, this spirit disposes and softens all the members, and it is this spirit that is the efficient principle.

The philosophers, on the other hand, state that the male seed exudes as a vapor, for the womb is exceedingly porous and after the formation of the fetus the heat of the sun causes the male seed to evaporate and to leave the womb through the pores. It is evident that the womb is porous because the child receives nourishment through the pores.

I don't know what they thought the umbilical cord was for. I find references to clamping and cutting it, but not any theories as to why it existed. But here we have competing theories as to how the baby is conceived. The next question is how exactly does that small event produce a fully-formed human? Tomorrow we'll look at the chapter of the Secreta that deals with the formation of the fetus over time. See you soon.

(The illustration is actually the birth of Moses from the 14th-century Queen Mary psalter.)