Some infants that appear to be born dead are merely weak and bloodless because blood has drained into the umbilical cord and surrounding parts before it is tied, and experienced midwives can sometimes revive such children by squeezing the blood back from the cord into the child’s body.

By Aristotle, from History of Animals

Key Arguments

  • He distinguishes genuine death from apparent death due to weakness and blood loss into the cord: 'It often happens that the child appears to have been born dead when it is merely weak, and when before the umbilical cord has been ligatured, the blood has run out into the cord and its surroundings.'
  • He attributes successful resuscitation to the practical intervention of skilled midwives: 'But experienced midwives have been known to squeeze back the blood into the child’s body from the cord,'
  • He claims an immediate, observable effect of this manipulation: 'and immediately the child that a moment before was bloodless came back to life again.'

Source Quotes

(If the ligature come loose the child dies from loss of blood.) But if the afterbirth has not yet come away, but remains after the child itself is extruded, it is cut away within after the ligaturing of the cord. It often happens that the child appears to have been born dead when it is merely weak, and when before the umbilical cord has been ligatured, the blood has run out into the cord and its surroundings. But experienced midwives have been known to squeeze back the blood into the child’s body from the cord, and immediately the child that a moment before was bloodless came back to life again.
It often happens that the child appears to have been born dead when it is merely weak, and when before the umbilical cord has been ligatured, the blood has run out into the cord and its surroundings. But experienced midwives have been known to squeeze back the blood into the child’s body from the cord, and immediately the child that a moment before was bloodless came back to life again. It is the natural rule, as we have mentioned above, for all animals to come into the world head foremost, and children, moreover, have their hands stretched out by their sides.

Key Concepts

  • It often happens that the child appears to have been born dead when it is merely weak, and when before the umbilical cord has been ligatured, the blood has run out into the cord and its surroundings.
  • But experienced midwives have been known to squeeze back the blood into the child’s body from the cord,
  • and immediately the child that a moment before was bloodless came back to life again.

Context

Book VII, section 10, immediately after the description of ligaturing the navel-string, where Aristotle reports empirical observations about apparent stillbirth and midwives’ techniques.