CONCEPTION AND PREGNANCY

Hippocrates of Cos wrote that, if parents desired a girl baby, the father's diet should
include a regimen "inclining to water," defined as foods, beverages, and pursuits of
a cold, moist, and gentle nature. But should a male child be desired, the opposite
was required.
Soranus of Ephesus prescribed ways to strengthen the mother's appetite during
pregnancy and how to enhance dietary assimilation:
[A pregnant woman] ought to partake of foods of neutral character, such as fish which
are not greasy, meats which are not very fat, and vegetables which are not pungent ...
she should avoid everything pungent, such as garlic, onions, leeks, preserved meat or
fish, and very moist foods.121

Soranus recommended that pica (geophagia) during pregnancy be countered by a
diet based on soft-boiled eggs, porridge, and meat from lean poultry. He also recom-
mended that nausea or vomiting during pregnancy could be reduced by eating wheat
groats prepared with cold water or diluted vinegar mixed with pomegranate pips, as
well as almonds, baked apples and quinces, olives pickled in brine, and preserves of
grapes, medlars (meadowlarks), and pears. Soranus recommended that his nauseated
patients also consume a diet pattern of raw and cooked vegetables, specifically wild
asparagus, endive, parsnip, plantain, and purslane, as well as meat from lean fowl,
specifically blackbird, wild duck, francolin, partridge, pigeon, ring-dove, thrush, and
breast-meat of domesticated fowl; meat from wild animals, especially antelope and
hare, as well as ears, feet, snout, stomach, and uterus of tender pigs. He also recom-
mended varieties of marine fish and other seafoods including crayfish, red mullet,
mussels, oysters, shrimp, trumpet-shell, and fish with a purple hue.122
The important medical compilation prepared by Paulus of Aegina, the 7th-
century commentator, is commonly overlooked, given ready accessibility to texts of
earlier Greco-Roman physicians. Nevertheless, Paulus contributed significantly to
Mediterranean medicine and dietetics, as evidenced by his passage on pregnancy:
Most troublesome [complaints during pregnancy] are continued vomiting, salivation,
heartburn, and loathing of food; remedies are exercise on foot, food that is not too sweet,
[use of] wines that are yellow, fragrant, and about five years old; these will cure vomiting;
for medicines you may give [her] dill at or before a meal; heartburn may be alleviated
by drinking warm water . for those who have an aversion to food, whet their appetite
with savory foods, and give dry starch, this last is particularly serviceable to those who
long to eat earth, which occurs most frequently about the third month after conception
... labor and long journeys will contribute to restore a desire for wholesome food; to
those who loathe food, they may take acrid substances, particularly mustard.
INFANTS
Aristotle of Stageira wrote that newborn children commonly experienced convul-
sions if overfed with breast milk suckled from obese wet nurses, and that wine given
to infants would also cause convulsions.
Galen of Pergamum stated that newborn infants should be provided with food
and drink that was moist, and that nature had planned that children's food be mother's
milk, which he considered was best for all infants unless the mother was ill.
Soranus of Ephesus wrote that wet nurses typically should be between the ages
of 20-40, have already delivered 2-3 infants, be large-framed, in good health with
fine complexion, and should regularly abstain from drinking wine.126 Having iden-
tified the characteristics of good wet nurses, he prescribed their diets:
[They] ought to forgo leek and onions, garlic, preserved meat or fish, radish, pulse,
and all preserved food, and most vegetables; and meat of sheep and oxen, and this
especially if roasted . [they] should partake of pure bread, carefully prepared and
leavened and made from spring wheat, the yolks of eggs, brain, thrushes, the young
of pigeons and domestic birds, fishes living among rocks, bass, red mullet and . the
meat of suckling pigs.

Soranus emphasized the importance of breast feeding throughout the first 6
months of infancy, identified infant weaning foods, and the timing of weaning:
When the body has already become firm and ready to receive more solid food,
which it will scarcely do successfully before the age of six months, it is proper to
feed the child also with cereal food: with crumbs of bread softened with hydromel
or milk, sweet wine, or honey wine. Later, one should also give soup made from
spelt, a very moist porridge, and an egg that can be sipped ... as soon as the infant
takes cereal food readily and ... [after growth of the teeth] ... one must stealthily
and gradually take it off the breast and wean it by adding constantly to the amount
of other food but diminishing the quantity of milk ... The best season for weaning
is the spring.
THE ELDERLY
Galen considered health and exercise needs of the elderly, and commented on specific
diets appropriate at this life stage. He described the food-intake pattern of an 80-
year-old male who exercised, kept himself well, who ate only toasted bread with
Attic honey in the morning, dined on laxative foods in moderation at noon (identified
as rock-bass and deep-sea varieties of fish), then in the evening ate soft foods such
as barley with honey-wine, or game-birds cooked in simple broths.129 Galen also
described another near-centenarian who ate sparingly:
[The man ate] barley boiled in water mixed with the best raw honey . who [when
dining at lunch] ate vegetables first, and then fish or game . but in the evening he ate
only bread moistened in dilute wine.
Paulus recognized that diets changed with age and recommended specific foods
for the elderly:
Old age is dry and cold [therefore] about the third hour give a small bit of bread with
Attic honey; and afterwards about the seventh hour . [give] fish or fowls; and then
for supper, such things as are wholesome, and not apt to spoil in the stomach; we must
give [elderly with phlegm] ripe figs in preference to every other kind of food, and if
during the winter dried figs, unless they complain of unpleasant symptoms . it is
obvious that all pot-herbs ought to be eaten before all other food, with oil, pickles, or olives and damascenes seasoned with salt.