AS to this Point, the Case indeed differs much in my Judgment from the Former: For tho’ I have heard some loquacious Women strenuously aver the contrary, because of their own rash Mistakes; yet I cannot help being of the same Opinion still, that this Month seldom or never produces a living, or lively Child: And that because, if the Infant hath Strength enough, it must needs appear about the Close of the Seventh Month; but if not, the Attempts are the same, according to its greater or less Abilitys; (as most Mothers may very sensibly observe in their own Conditions, by its extraordinary Motions and Struggles at that Time) whereby it is so weaken’d and debilitated, that it requires the Eighth full Month, and Part of the Ninth, to recover itself, and recollect its exhausted Strength and Vigour.
ANOTHER Natural Reason besides may be given for This; because that this Month is peculiar to the Planet Saturn, which is an Enemy to all Creatures that breath Life: For he now returns not with the same Meekness and Lenity of Influence that he used in the First Month of the CONCEPTION, but with a far greater Severity of Tyranny and Enmity; as by his Frigidity, lessening and extinguishing the Native Heat of the INFANT, rendering it Unactive and Slow to Motion; so by his Siccity, constringing the Passages and Orifice of the Womb: which, if so, must (of necessity) very much endanger both the MOTHER and the INFANT.
BE this as it will, yet it is most certain, that the Child born in this Month is always very Weak and Sickly; However if, by chance, it survives the 14th, it may live till about the 40th Day, when it most commonly breathes its Last: Yet if it also survives this Time, the greatest Danger being then over, it may, by the means of tender Care and Art, be brought up as others are usually reared: But how long-liv’d soever, or well-governed its Health may be, it will still continue of a weakly and tender Constitution of Body, if not also half-witted[121] in Mind.
UPON this Head some Egyptian Writers mention, that because Dionysius, who was born in the EIGHTH MONTH, lived in the Island of NAXOS; therefore both this Number and the Island were dedicated to his everlasting Memory; Whereupon, they say, he obtained the Prerogative and Privilege from the GODS, that the Women of NAXOS only, in this MONTH, should bring forth in Safety, and their CHILDREN only enjoy Vitality.
WHICH Fable may however serve to satisfy us, that they have had no better Opinion of an Eight-Months BIRTH, in those Antient Days, than the Generality of Learned Men yet have in these Modern Times: signifying in the main, by this comical Allusion to that little Island in the Ægean Sea, that if, peradventure, an Octimestrian BIRTH, by its more propitious Destiny, should be determined to Life; that ought to be looked upon as something Extraordinary, and not laid down for any general Hypothesis: especially for this manifest Reason, because in all other Nations, such CHILDREN are commonly observed to be but short-liv’d; as the Women, labouring with CHILD at that critical[122] or fatal TIME, are absolutely exposed to the severest of excruciating PAINS, and the greatest of imminent DANGERS.
MOREOVER, Hippocrates himself testifies, that the very Gestation[123] of the eighth Month is the most onerous and difficult of all the Time, as well on account of the Indisposition of the Womb, as by reason of the Mother’s being affected by the disturbing Motions of the Infant: Wherefore if the Birth then draws on, it receives a double Damage, and suffers as well because of these Affections of the Mother and Womb, as by its own proper Motions in precipitating itself.
FROM what is said, we may easily comprehend what HIPPOCRATES means by that obscure[124] Ænigma, which some have formerly reckoned more inextricable than any Herculean Knot, viz. An Octimestrian Birth is and is not; signifying thereby nothing else than that the Child born in the eighth Month (in some respect) may be supposed in Being, but really and indeed is not, because it soon vanishes and dies.