Milk is formed in the females of all internally viviparous animals, becoming useful for the time of birth.For Nature has made it for the sake of the nourishment of animals after birth, so that it may neither fail at this time at all nor yet be at all superfluous; this is just what we find happening, unless anything chance contrary to Nature.In the other animals the period of gestation does not vary, and so the milk is concocted in time to suit this moment, but in man, since there are several times of birth, it must be ready at the first of these; hence in women the milk is useless before the seventh month and only then becomes useful.That it is only concocted at the last stages is what we should expect to happen also as being due to a necessary cause.For at first such residual matter when secreted is used up for the development of the embryo; now the nutritious part in all things is the sweetest and the most concocted, and thus when all such elements are removed what remains must become of necessity bitter and ill-flavoured.As the embryo is perfecting, the residual matter left over increases in quantity because the part consumed by the embryo is less; it is also sweeter since the easily concocted part is less drawn away from it.For it is no longer expended on moulding the embryo but only on slightly increasing its growth, it being now fixed because it has reached perfection (for in a sense there is a perfection even of an embryo).
Therefore it comes forth from the mother and changes its mode of development, as now possessing what belongs to it; and no longer takes that which does not belong to it; and it is at this season that the milk becomes useful.
The milk collects in the upper part of the body and the breasts because of the original plan of the organism.For the part above the hypozoma is the sovereign part of the animal, while that below is concerned with nourishment and residual matter, in order that all animals which move about may contain within themselves nourishment enough to make them independent when they move from one place to another.From this upper part also is produced the generative secretion for the reason mentioned in the opening of our discussion.
But both the secretion of the male and the catamenia of the female are of a sanguineous nature, and the first principle of this blood and of the blood-vessels is the heart, and the heart is in this part of the body.Therefore it is here that the change of such a secretion must first become plain.This is why the voice changes in both sexes when they begin to bear seed (for the first principle of the voice resides there, and is itself changed when its moving cause changes).
At the same time the parts about the breasts are raised visibly even in males but still more in females, for the region of the breasts becomes empty and spongy in them because so much material is drained away below.This is so not only in women but also in those animals which have the mammae low down.
This change in the voice and the parts about the mammae is plain even in other creatures to those who have experience of each kind of animal, but is most remarkable in man.The reason is that in man the production of secretion is greatest in both sexes in proportion to their size as compared with other animals; I mean that of the catamenia in women and the emission of semen in men.When, therefore, the embryo no longer takes up the secretion in question but yet prevents its being discharged from the mother, it is necessary that the residual matter should collect in all those empty parts which are set upon the same passages.And such is the position of the mammae in each kind of animals for both causes; it is so both for the sake of what is best and of necessity.
It is here, then, that the nourishment in animals is now formed and becomes thoroughly concocted.As for the cause of concoction, we may take that already given, or we may take the opposite, for it is a reasonable view also that the embryo being larger takes more nourishment, so that less is left over about this time, and the less is concocted more quickly.
That milk has the same nature as the secretion from which each animal is formed is plain, and has been stated previously.For the material which nourishes is the same as that from which Nature forms the animal in generation.Now this is the sanguineous liquid in the sanguinea, and milk is blood concocted (not corrupted; Empedocles either mistook the fact or made a bad metaphor when he composed the line: 'On the tenth day of the eighth month the milk comes into being, a white pus', for putrefaction and concoction are opposite things, and pus is a kind of putrefaction but milk is concocted).While women are suckling children the catamenia do not occur according to Nature, nor do they conceive; if they do conceive, the milk dries up.This is because the nature of the milk and of the catamenia is the same, and Nature cannot be so productive as to supply both at once; if the secretion is diverted in the one direction it must needs cease in the other, unless some violence is done contrary to the general rule.But this is as much as to say that it is contrary to Nature, for in all cases where it is not impossible for things to be otherwise than they generally are but where they may so happen, still what is the general rule is what is 'according to Nature'.
The time also at which the young animal is born has been well arranged.For when the nourishment coming through the umbilical cord is no longer sufficient for the foetus because of its size, then at the same time the milk becomes useful for the nourishment of the newly-born animal, and the blood-vessels round which the so-called umbilical cord lies as a coat collapse as the nourishment is no longer passing through it; for these reasons it is at that time also that the young animal enters into the world.
