Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Psychology, Wayne State University, 275 E. Hancock, Detroit, MI 48201, USA
Received 10 November 1998; in revised form 22 February 1999; accepted 10 April 1999
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ABSTRACT |
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INTRODUCTION |
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Warner and Rosett (1975) published a historical survey in which they collected an extensive list of examples, primarily from the last 250 years, which they contended also supported the conclusion of Jones and Smith that an awareness of the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure long antedated its rediscovery. But like Jones and Smith, the evidence they cited was inaccurate. Warner and Rosett (1975) expanded the prohibition against drinking on the bridal night to Sparta, and cited several passages in Robert Burton's (15771640) The Anatomy of Melancholy (Burton, 1621), in which he is apparently quoting verbatim statements from ancient Greek and Roman writers which imply more than a rudimentary awareness of alcohol-related birth defects.
The anecdotes and quotations mentioned in these two papers are frequently cited in contemporary reports to indicate the timelessness and persistence of FAS as a human problem (Armstrong, 1998, p. 10). Despite their widespread acceptance, however, the authenticity or the meaning of these quoted passages or the anecdote relating to the Carthaginians have rarely been questioned. This same uncritical scholarship likewise characterizes acceptance of a passage from the biblical Book of Judges (13: 3,4) which has also been frequently cited as indicating a rudimentary awareness of FAS in the biblical world (see, e.g. Davis, 1980). However, even a cursory examination of the text indicated that it was concerned with cultic injunctions that are unrelated to damage from in utero alcohol exposure (Abel, 1997). Since the biblical evidence for a rudimentary awareness of FAS proved so illusory, it seems apposite to examine the evidence from the Greek and Roman era to determine if it likewise would hold up under scrutiny. An earlier and a briefer discussion of this evidence has appeared (Abel, 1984
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The first part of this article examines the evidence with respect to attribution and accuracy of the quotations cited as evidence that there was an awareness of alcohol's potential teratogenicity by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The second part discusses how the views of the Greeks and Romans concerning alcohol's reproductive effects stemmed from their social attitudes toward women, who in Aristotle's words were deformed men. The final section examines the biological explanation that the Greeks and Romans relied on to explain how deformities, which included women, could occur if men were drunk at the time their progeny were conceived.
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THE SOURCES |
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Since Burton did not accurately quote his sources verbatim, it is clear that he was giving his readers a reconstructed synopsis of what he believed those authors would have said had they spoken directly on the subject of alcohol's effects (cf. Bamborough, 1989). For instance, Aristotle (reprinted 1927) did discuss alcohol's effects on reproduction in the Problemata (871a, 872b), but when he did so, his concern was with alcohol's effects on male libido and infertility, not with its effects on the conceptus: Why is it that those who are drunk are incapable of having sexual intercourse?; Why is the semen of drunkards generally infertile? Burton combined these statements with Aristotle's other views, which are discussed below, and created a new statement about drunken women on Aristotle's behalf.
Aulus Gellius likewise made no specific reference to the prenatal effects of drinking on offspring. The closest he came to anything pertinent are three statements. One is that ... the power and nature of the seed are able to form likenesses of body and mind. Another is a remark a few lines later, that the nobility of body and mind of a newly born human being, [are] formed from gifted seeds. And the third is a comment that a wet nurse should not drink wine. These statements were then woven together by Burton and attributed to Gellius as: if a drunken man get a childe, it will never likely have a good braine.
The other writer Burton appeared to quote is Plutarch. Once again, however, Burton put words into his source's mouth, but in this instance, his reconstruction comes close to Plutarch's words. In Symposiacs (Plutarch, reprinted 1898, 1.6.1) Plutarch alluded to the chicken versus the egg primacy question, and then said those being after these and formed in them, pay as it were a debt to Nature, by bringing forth another. In other words, like begets like. In another of Plutarch's books, Education of Children (Plutarch, reprinted 1927, ch. 3), which Burton did not cite, Plutarch made a comment which is very similar to the one Burton attributed to him: children whose fathers have chanced to beget them in drunkenness are wont to be fond of wine, and to be given to excessive drinking. In Burton's mind, this becomes, one drunkard begets another.
The other text which is often cited as evidence that the Greeks and Romans had a rudimentary awareness that alcohol could cause fetal damage is the alleged Carthaginian prohibition against newly wed couples drinking wine on the wedding night in order that defective children might not be conceived (Jones and Smith, 1973). In citing this prohibition, Jones and Smith (1973) gave Haggard and Jellinek (1942) as their source. Although the latter did not state their source for this injunction, it has also been cited by other authors (e.g. Mathews Duncan, 1888).
However, no such law or ritualistic injunction existed in Carthage (Lancel, 1995). Its genesis appears to have arisen from a conflation between two statements of Plato (429347 bc) in his Laws. The first is a reference to a Carthaginian law which ordains that no soldier on the march should ever taste of this potion [wine], but confine himself for the whole of the time to water drinking only (Plato, reprinted 1952, 2, 674). The second is a statement Plato made advising parents to be sober when they procreate children since: ... it is not right that procreation should be the work of bodies dissolved by excess of wine, but rather that the embryo should be compacted firmly, steadily and quietly in the womb (Plato, reprinted 1952, 6, 775cd). The conflation between these two statements became the basis of the alleged Carthaginian prohibition forbidding married couples to drink on their wedding night. Although this conflation explains the origins of the Carthaginian anecdote, we must still account for Plato's advice. Before doing so, we need first to understand what most concerned Plato, Aristotle, and their aristocratic contemporaries regarding procreation.
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THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD |
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Since boys were more important in classical society than girls, the Greeks and Romans were interested in increasing the likelihood of conceiving males; this led them into a consideration of how alcohol affected the body.
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NATURAL HEAT THEORY |
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In elaborating his proof, Aristotle started from a premise which was widely held by the Greeks and Romans, that every living thing was essentially a combination in varying degrees of two elements, fire and water (Abel, 1973); fire gave a body its heat and dryness, water its cold and wetness. An individual's health, intelligence, and emotions depended on which element was predominant. Women were inferior because their bodies did not have as much natural heat as the male. Evidence of women's lower body heat was the menstrual period. Semen and menstrual blood were analogous, he said, the difference being that semen was cooked (concocted) by the male's greater body heat so that it was purer and white; the female's menses, by contrast, was a less refined concoction of nutrients. Excess bodily water was the basis of inferiority. The same inferiority that made a woman unable to control her body also made her less controlled in her behaviour, hence her period was called oistron in Greek (from which we derive our term oestrus), meaning gadfly (Katz, 1990
). The more natural heat a body possessed, the greater its perfection. Heat, said the Roman physician Galen (129199 ad) is Nature's primary instrument ... the female is less perfect than the male by as much as she is colder than he (Galen, reprinted 1968, 14.299).
The idea that all living organisms had a natural heat provided the classical world with an explanation for the origins of disease, as well as the differences between the sexes and their procreation. Health and maleness were considered the norm; by upsetting the balance between fire and water through external forces such as the weather, the influence of the planets, or food and drink, the conception of females, (inferior males) would take place.
Since food and drink were assumed to be the primary means by which the body's heat was maintained and replenished, the way in which food and alcohol influenced a conceptus was by altering the body's natural heat. Moderation in eating and drinking was considered beneficial for replenishing the body's heat and for making a man amorously warm and active, and stirring his seed (Macrobius, reprinted 1969, 7.6.8; Ovid, reprinted 1985, 1.239 40, 244; Terence, reprinted, 1920, 732). Gluttony and drunkenness, on the other hand, had an opposite effect. By chilling the body they quenched the libido (Aristotle, reprinted 1927, 871a871b; Plutarch, reprinted 1898, 3.5.2.). The effects of extreme cold and drunkenness were the same, said Macrobius (reprinted 1969, 7.6.9).
Drunken men who could still perform sexually were cautioned that their lower body temperatures would result in their conceiving females. This was because, instead of imparting his body heat to his wife, a wife's womb would remain in its usual cold state. Those of a moister and more feminine state of body were more likely to beget females, said Aristotle (reprinted 1963, 766b33). Seed which they (drunkards) sow is unfit for generation, added Macrobius (reprinted 1969, 7.6.9), since the excess of wine, as a cold substance, makes it thin or weak.
The idea that drunkenness chilled the body is the explanation for Plato's (reprinted 1952) admonition that parents remain sober during coition. A man steeped in wine ... is clumsy and bad at sowing seed, and is thus likely to beget unstable and untrusty offspring, crooked in form and character. By making a man clumsy during intercourse, his sperm would take on his characteristics and likewise become clumsy and that clumsiness would be passed on to his children.
The idea that a person's physical and mental inferiority stemmed from a difference in natural heat passed down through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. The French physician Laurent Joubert (15291582), for example, said that Nature was always striving for perfection and therefore trying to create sons. Quoting Aristotle, Joubert (1578, p. 107) said that when Nature created a daughter it in effect was creating a mutilated and imperfect male. Richard Burton's reliance on the natural heat theory for his creative reconstructions is clearly indicated in the opening sentence of his chapter dealing with the effects of drunkeness on procreation: as the temperature of the father is, such is the sonnes ... (Burton, 1621, 1.2.1.6).
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GENERAL CONCLUSIONS AND COMMENTS |
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Finally, Greek and Roman views of the effects of drunkeness were not based on empirical evidence, but were, instead, extrapolations of an ideologically driven theory that attempted to rationalize the inferior social status of women. While our own attitudes and efforts to understand alcohol's effects on development have also recently been questioned as to motive (Armstrong, 1998), the essential nature of these effects is not disputed (Abel, 1998
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In summary, FAS was not recognized by the Greeks and Romans. Comments from the past that were misquoted or taken out of context, and failure to consider the Zeitgeist that influenced those comments, have led to the mistaken review that the ancient Greeks and Romans were aware of the syndrome.
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REFERENCES |
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Abel, E. L. (1984) Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effects. Plenum Press, New York.
Abel, E. L. (1997) Was the fetal alcohol syndrome recognized in the ancient Near East? Alcohol and Alcoholism 32, 37.[Abstract]
Abel, E. L. (1998) Fetal Alcohol Abuse Syndrome. Plenum Press, New York.
Aristotle (reprinted 1927) Problemata. In The Works of Aristotle, Forster, E. S. ed. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
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Armstrong, E. M. (1998) Diagnosing moral disorder: the discovery and evolution of fetal alcohol syndrome. Social Sciences and Medicine 47, 20252042.[ISI][Medline]
Bamborouogh, J. M. (1989) Introduction. In Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Faulker, T. C., Kiessling, N. K. and Blair, R. L. eds, pp. xxv, xxxiv. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Burton, R. (1621) The Anatomy of Melancholy. Vintage, New York (reprinted 1977).
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Demand, N. (1994) Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Galen (reprinted 1968) On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
Gellius, Aulus (reprinted 1948) The Attic Nights. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Haggard, H. W. and Jellinek, E. M. (1942) Alcohol Explored. Doubleday, Garden City, NY.
Jones, K. L. and Smith, D. W. (1973) Recognition of the fetal alcohol syndrome in early infancy. Lancet ii, 9991001.
Jones, K. L., Smith, D. W., Ulleland, C. N. and Streissguth, A. P. (1973) Pattern of malformation in offspring of chronic alcoholic mothers. Lancet i, 12671271.
Joubert, L. (1578) Erreurs Populaires au Fait de la Medecine et Regime de Sante, p. 107. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL (reprinted 1989).
Katz, M. A. (1990) Sexuality and the body in ancient Greece. Trends in History 4, 97125.
Lancel, S. (1995) Carthage, A History. Blackwell, Oxford.
Macrobius (reprinted 1969) Saturnalia. Columbia University Press, New York.
Mathews Duncan, J. (1888) On alcoholism and gynaecology and obstetrics. Transactions of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society 12, 105120.
Ovid (reprinted 1985) Art of Love. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Plato (reprinted 1952) Laws. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Plutarch (reprinted 1898) Symposiacs. In Plutarch's Miscellanies and Essays, Goodwin, W. W. ed. Little, Brown, Boston, MA.
Plutarch (reprinted 1927) Education of Children. In Plutarch's Moralia, Babbitt, F. C. (ed.). G. P. Putnam, New York.
Soranus (reprinted 1991) Gynecology, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MA.
Terence (reprinted 1920) The Eunuch. G. P. Putnam, New York.
Warner, R. H. and Rosett, H. L. (1975) The effects of drinking on offspring: an historical survey of the American and British literature. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 36, 13951420.[ISI][Medline]