Читать книгу Medicine in the Middle Ages. Extracts from "Le Moyen Age Medical" by Dr. Edmond Dupouy; translated by T. C. Minor онлайн

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Physicians were not obliged by the magistrates to determine the nature of rapes on women; all gynecological questions were remanded to midwives. In truth, among all the physicians of antiquity only Hippocrates discussed uterine complaints and Ætius studied obstetrics. It was only in the sixteenth century that midwifery took its place among the medical sciences, thanks to Rhodion, Ambroise Parè, Reif, Rousset, and Guillemeau. Shortly before this time, that is to say, in the fifteenth century, Jacques de Foril published his “Commentaires” on generation, his ideas being derived from Avicenna; his notions, however, were absurd, being wholly based on astrological considerations. He pretended that an infant is not viable in the eighth month, because in the first month the pregnant woman is protected by Jupiter, from whom comes life; and in the seventh month by the moon, which favorizes life by its humidity and light; while in the eighth month or reign of Saturn, who eats children, the influence is hostile. But on the ninth month the benevolent influence of Jupiter is again experienced, and for this reason the infant is more apt to be alive at this period of gestation.