Birth of the fetus

When the uterus engulfs the seed, the first circumstance that arises is foaminess. This is one of the actions of the formative force, and the truth about this foaminess is that the formative force moves the soul, natural and animal pneuma present in the seed to the source of each of them, so that they are established there; the corresponding organ is formed from the seed in the same way as we have outlined and covered in our books devoted to the basics of medicine. Therefore, the entire pneuma is directed to the middle of the moisture to prepare a place for the heart, after which two new pneuma appear on the right side and on the upper side of it, which seem to branch off from the first and for some time come into contact with it, and then they move away and separate from her. The original pneuma forms a blood clot of the heart, and the right one forms a blood clot of the liver, while the last pneuma fills with whitish blood and passes to the surface of the diffused moisture, as a bubble of air passes, piercing it to receive help from the uterus, from the pneuma and from the blood; this creates a navel. As soon as the navel is formed, it becomes visible,  but the pneumae forming the heart, liver and brain arise before the creation of the navel, although the completion of these three organs lags behind the completion of the substance of the navel. This is what we have established, and we have stated the controversies about it in our books on the fundamentals of natural science.

When the seed is established and foams and the foam penetrates deep into the form of pneuma for the heart, then from the movement of the female seed to the male seed, a shell surrounding the fruit is formed; it is separated from the uterus and is then connected to the uterus only through the above-mentioned notches to attract nutrients. The fruit feeds only through this shell while the shell remains soft and requires only a little food; when it hardens, nutrition is carried out through distinct vascular passages formed in the openings of the shell, and after some time the latter is divided into several shells.

The truth is that the first organ to come into being is the heart, although it is said that Hippocrates, on the basis of what is evidenced by the state of chicks in the egg, said: “The first organs to come into being are the heart and the eyes. However, the heart is at the beginning of its creation not every animal is clearly and distinctly visible." Later a certain chatterbox appeared who said that in fact the first thing that is created is the liver, since the first action of the body is nutrition, as if things really were as he wished and considered right. Such an opinion is not supported either by experience, for the people who do this have not observed at all what he claims, nor by logical deduction. After all, if the situation is as it claims, and the organ whose action should precede the others is created first, then nutrition cannot be obtained from it. Let it be known that not a single animal organ can be nourished in which life is not prepared by innate warmth. And if so, it means that it is necessary to create an organ from which innate heat and animal pneuma emanate, before the feeding organ is created. The formative force does not need, in giving form to the fruit, to nourish it until there is a tangible assimilation that requires replacement, as well as the presence of animal pneuma and innate warmth to carry out the formation. And if he says that the formative force gets this from the father, then the nourishing force that accompanies the formative and generative force also comes from the father. And how could it be otherwise, when the formative one exists before the nourishing one. Here

The second circumstance is the appearance of a drop of blood in the membrane of the fetus and some spread of it in the membrane. In this condition, the foamy pneuma has time to transform into some bloodiness, and the navel perceptibly transforms into the form of a true navel. The third circumstance is the transformation of the seed into a blood clot, and then turning it into a piece of meat. Here a tangible division and tangible size appear in the dominant organs, and then new transformations occur until the emergence of the heart and the first organs is completed. The organs begin to move away from each other and upper blood vessels form between them; the limbs have already acquired outlines, but have not yet fully emerged, like their vessels. The transformations then continue until limbs are formed. For every transformation or two transformations there is a time limit that is set, but these things are not of those things that do not change, and the time limits are different for male and female fetuses - for women they are longer. People who carry out experiments and research have views on this, between which, in essence, there is no discrepancy: each judges by how he established this matter according to his experience, and it is possible that what another learned from experience happened differently way: after all, all this is inevitably judged as the most common.

And more often than not, in most cases, when the fruit is conceived, the foaming time of the seed lasts six or seven days. These days the formative force disposes of the drop of semen without seeking the help of the womb, but then seeks her help. The beginning of the appearance of the lines and dots takes place after another three days, so that it will be nine days from the beginning of the generation; sometimes it happens a day earlier, and sometimes a day later. Then, after another six days, the fifteenth day comes from conception, and the blood fluid passes through the entire fetus, so that it becomes a blood clot; sometimes it happens a day or two days earlier. Twelve days after this, the liquid turns into meat; pieces of meat are distinguished and three organs are clearly distinguished; they move away from contact with each other, and the moisture of the spinal cord spreads; sometimes it happens two or three days later or earlier.

Then, after nine days, the head is separated from the shoulders, and the limbs from the ribs and abdomen; for some this is felt immediately, for others it remains hidden and is felt after another four days, completing the forty days; in rare cases this is delayed up to forty-five days, and the shortest period is thirty days.

The first teaching mentions that the embryo, miscarried after forty days, if you cut the amniotic sac and put the fetus in cold water, is something small with separate limbs. This occurs more quickly in a male fetus than in a female fetus, and it appears that the shortest period of formation for a male fetus is thirty days. The shortest period for the onset of childbirth is six months; We'll talk about this soon. As for determining the state of the male and female fetus at different periods, some doctors judge this matter too boldly and at random: the seed, as soon as it finds a place to breathe, begins to breathe, and the first thing the formative force does is to create a place where innate warmth is collected; then it creates exits and passages, and then, after that, the feeding force takes over. According to some, the fetus sometimes breathes through its mouth, and later, when it reaches maturity in the uterus, it breathes more strongly through its mouth, but there is no evidence of this. Others believe that when, after formation, it begins to move, and it is born when, after the movement, twice as much as passed before the movement, so that from the beginning of the formation of the fetus and the beginning of conception to childbirth, three times as much passes as passed from conception to movements. And milk appears when the fetus moves. It is also said that the moderate average time for the formation of the fetus is thirty-five days, that it begins to move after seventy days and is born after two hundred and ten days, that is, after seven lunar months. Sometimes the birth occurs a few days early, and sometimes it is delayed, since in relation to the first thirty days there is a slight difference, which increases with doubling. If this extended period is forty-five days, then the fetus begins to move after ninety days and is born after two hundred and seventy days, that is, after nine months. Sometimes there is also a difference of several days, as mentioned above, and this is a matter in which the researcher cannot establish a firm decision.

A child born after eight months, unless he is one of those who in most cases are not destined to live, as you will learn later, completes his formation completely, according to the mentioned ratio, and is born after its completion. His terms are forty days, then eighty days and then one hundred and twenty days, but may be less or more, as you already know.

They say that during a miscarriage, a mature male fetus under thirty days and a mature female fetus under forty days are not found. They also say that a baby born at seven months gains strength and strength after he is seven months old, a baby born at nine months after nine months, and a baby born at ten months after ten months. We devote a paragraph to the timing of pregnancy and childbirth in the article following this article. Know that the blood of a pregnant woman’s menstruation is divided into three parts: part is spent on nutrition, part rises to the breast, and part, which is an excess, is retained until the time of postpartum cleansing comes, and then it is ejected. The fruit is surrounded by three shells: - villous, covering the fruit, and vessels are intertwined in it - beating, which converge into two vessels, and resting, which also converge into two vessels. The second shell is called al-las - it is a wrapping shell and fetal urine flows into it. The third shell is called the front, and this is where his sweat pours out. There is no need for another container for excess in the form of feces, since the substance on which the fetus feeds is soft, devoid of hardness and sediment, and only the watery moisture of urine or sweat is separated from the fetus. The membrane closest to the fruit is the third, thinnest: it is thinnest in order to collect the liquid oozing from the fruit. There is utility in collecting this fluid, for it supports the fetus so that it is not heavy for itself and for the uterus, and it also lengthens the distance between the skin of the fetus and the uterus, since the hard lining of the uterus would cause pain to the fetus by its touch, just as touch causes pain. to skin that has recently grown on the ulcers and has not yet hardened. As for the sheath that is adjacent to this sheath on the outside, it is the entwining sheath, so called because it resembles scrolls. To this sheath pass from the navel ducts for urine, which is not secreted through the canal of the penis, for the canal of the penis is narrow and surrounded by a supervising muscle, which relaxes by the action of the will and has convolutions to the very end; The time for using such a channel is the time after birth, when it can be controlled. As for that channel, it is wide and goes straight. A special container is made for urine, since if it came into contact with the body, the body could not bear its causticity and pungency, and this is clear; the difference between urine and sweat in smell and red color is also obvious. And if urine came into contact with the villous membrane, it would undoubtedly sometimes destroy what the vessels of the villous membrane cover.

The villous membrane consists of two thin layers, between which the vessels are intertwined. Vessels of each kind, that is, arteries and veins, converge into two vessels. As for both venous vessels, having entered the membrane, they choose the shortest distance to the liver and unite into one vessel so that it is more preserved. This vessel passes to the convexity of the liver so as not to constrict the organ that secretes bile in the hepatic cavity. In reality, this vessel grows from the liver and descends to the navel, and from the navel goes to the villous membrane, where it divides and turns into two vessels. They are attracted to the villous membrane and exit to the mouths of the vessels located in the uterus. These vessels have two qualities: firstly, they are thinnest near the mouths, at the point of contact with the uterus, so that it looks like the ends of the branches of the vessels, and secondly, they first become red, starting from this place, because they take blood from there, and people think that they grow from there. If we take into account the width of the holes, then it seems that their root is in the liver, and if we take into account the transition of their color to bloody, then it seems that their root is in the villous membrane. But first of all, the holes and passages should be taken into account, as for the transition to the color of blood, this depends on the condition of the surfaces surrounding the holes. The arteries also join together to form two arteries. If we consider their beginning to be the villous membrane, it will turn out that they pass from the navel to the large artery running along the spinal ridge, and lie on the bladder, for this is the nearest organ on which they can rest there. For safety's sake, they are attached to it with shells. Then they penetrate into a permanent artery, the operation of which is not impaired in the animal until the end of its life.

This is the clear meaning of the doctors' words. However, in reality these two arteries are branches, and the true place of origin of their growth is the iliac artery, according to the previous reasoning. Doctors say that these arteries should not merge into one or go towards the heart, because the distance to it is considerable and they would encounter obstacles, and since the distance to the organ with which they are connected is close, they do not need to unite. They also say that since the fetus at this time does not have much benefit for breathing from the veins and arteries passing to the heart and lungs, their usefulness is directed to nutrition, and a passage is built from one to the other, which closes at birth. And the lungs of the fetus are red only because they do not breathe, but feed on liquid red blood, and only an admixture of air makes them white. Doctors also say that the entwining membrane is created from female seed, which is small, less than male; therefore, it cannot be wide and is created long to connect the fetus with the lower parts of the uterus. It is too narrow to accept all the liquids, and therefore it turned out that it was necessary to set aside a separate large container for sweat, doctors say, but all this is just one of their exaggerations. If the male nature first comes to the heart of the fetus, then it spreads throughout all the organs, and the fetus, as a result of this male essence, strives to become like its father. But sometimes the cause of the male essence is not the nature of the father, but the condition of the uterus or, especially, the secondary nature of the seed. Therefore, it is not necessary that the fetus, if it resembles its father in that it is male, resembles him in all organs - no, it sometimes resembles its mother. Personal resemblance follows appearance, but masculinity follows not appearance, but nature: sometimes the heart alone has a nature similar to the nature of the father, which spills over the members of the body. And with regard to the appearance of the limbs, taking on matter, they tend to the image of the mother. Sometimes the formative power can overpower the seed and mold it after the father's pattern as regards outline, but as regards nature it is unable to make the fruit resemble the father in nature. Some scientists say, without moving away from the possible in their judgments, that one of the reasons for the similarity is the human images that consistently appear in the imagination of a woman and a man during conception. As for growth, its deficiency occurs from the poverty of matter at the beginning of pregnancy or from the poverty of nutrition during the development of the fetus.

The reason for the birth of twins is the abundance of semen, which pours into both cavities of the uterus, filling each separately; sometimes this happens as a result of discordant ejaculation in both parents, if it coincides with discordant movements of the uterus when retracting the seed. After all, the uterus, drawing in the seed, makes successive movements and seems to swallow one piece after another or breathes over and over again, like a fish, for it also pushes the seed to the bottom with pushes, and with each push the seed is drawn in from the outside, since the uterus strives to unite both seeds . Considerate men who have intercourse feel this, and women themselves know it too. Such individual pushes and pulls are not smooth, but convulsive, and each movement seems to be composed of several movements. However, it ends only after several twitches and, moreover, behind each set of twitches a certain stop is felt, after which the twitching resumes; it is like stopping between ejaculation of semen from the penis. Each subsequent time the twitching is weaker in strength and less in number; the number of times sometimes exceeds three or four, and this doubles the woman's pleasure. After all, women enjoy the movement of their inherent seed and enjoy the movement of a man’s seed inward at the mouth of the uterus; they even enjoy the movements produced by the uterus itself. The words of those who say that women's pleasure and its fullness depend on the ejaculation of semen by a man are incorrect, as if women would not feel pleasure from the emission of their own semen if the man did not ejaculate. When a man ejaculates, but the uterus does not make these movements and does not stop between them, the woman experiences only a little pleasure. Men also have this sensation before their seed begins to move: it is similar to an itchy tickling when the seed is involuntarily leaked.

The words of people who claim that the male seed, pouring into the uterus, quenches its warmth and pacifies its flaming, like cold water poured into hot boiling water, are also erroneous. After all, things only happen in this way, as we have already said, with the woman ejaculating her seed and absorbing the man’s seed as soon as it is ejaculated; at other times pleasure has no force to be reckoned with. Often the male ejaculation coincides with the female ejaculation, and both seeds are mixed, and then new eruptions follow, and this is repeated over and over again. Then the woman bears several fruits, for each mixture fertilizes separately, on its own. Sometimes both seeds are mixed together, but then they are torn apart, or one of them that came out before is torn off, due to the winds or twitches or other causes that separate the seed, and each seed exists alone. Often the mixing of several discharges occurs after the plexus of the membrane, and several fruits end up in one thing; This is one of those cases when the formation of fruits is not completed and they do not reach life. And sometimes such a mixture takes place before this, and if things go this way, then it seems that the fruit will not be very lucky. Lucky is the embryo that from the very beginning entered the uterus separately, when the male seed was lonely and not yet very abundant, did not fill the uterus and did not reach all four of its sides, so that the female seed, pouring out from horn-shaped appendages similar to on date pits.

As soon as both seeds are mixed, the boiling mentioned above occurs and the pneuma and the first sheath are created. The entire seed is then suspended from the horn-shaped appendages and finds there something to nourish itself with while it still remains a seed and until it begins to take nutrition from the blood of menstruation or those pits to which the formed shell is adjacent. According to Galen, this sheath is a kind of lubricant left by the female seed when it is poured out where the male seed is poured out. If the female seed does not merge with the male one, it dilutes it when mixed. Sometimes a woman, as well as a mare, will take a seed on top of another seed and give birth to both fetuses at once.

As for childbirth, it occurs when the fetus no longer has enough blood, which the membrane supplies it, and the pneuma reaching it, and its members become perfect. Here he moves to emerge in the seventh month, when his strength becomes perfect, and if he cannot do this, then he is struck by some weakness, and strength does not come to him until the ninth month. If the fetus comes out in the eighth month, it comes out weak; it begins to move not from a generative force, but from another reason that moves it from its place and is irritating, but weak. The fetus is released by breaking through the moist membranes; their moisture pours out and causes the fruit to slip out. Beforehand, during a natural birth, he turns over head first to make it easier for him to separate. As for birth feet first, this happens due to the weakness of the child who cannot turn over. This is dangerous, and in most cases the child is not saved.

Before moving to exit, the fetus lies with its face on its legs and palms on its knees; his nose is between his knees, and his eyes are on his knees. His knees are pressed towards the front of his body and his neck and head are towards his mother's back to protect his heart. This position is the most convenient for turning over, although some people argue that a female fetus has a facial position opposite to the described position, which is characteristic only of a male fetus. The heaviness of the upper parts of the fetus's body and, in particular, the large size of its head help it roll over. When the fetus separates from the uterus, the uterus opens in a way that no similar organ can open; the joints inevitably separate, but the help and care of the great Allah are prepared for this, and the joints soon return to their natural connection. This action is one of the actions of a natural and formative force, carried out at the special, constant command of the creator for the sake of the continuous preparation of the fetus, which occurs along with its development and is not conscious. This belongs to the secrets of Allah, the great, true ruler; Blessed be Allah, the best of creators

The bottom line is that the reason for the natural birth of the fetus is its need for more air and more food. When his strength and soul awaken to seek vast space, acceptance of the wind of pneuma and more abundant nutrition, the child flees from cramped conditions, the need for air and meager food. At birth the child appears, he laughs after forty days.