In Ancient Greece, educated men were obsessed with wombs. They understood the purpose of the womb, but in order to explain the mood swing to hysteria of their women, they came up with the notion that those symptoms were caused by the womb "wandering" about the female body There was no ailment more dangerous for a woman than her womb spontaneously wandering around her abdominal cavity. It was an ailment that none other than the great philosopher Plato, as well as Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine.
The womb could head upward and downward, and left and right to collide with the liver or spleen–movements, argued Aretaeus, that manifest as various maladies in women. If it moved up, for instance, the womb caused sluggishness, lack of strength, and vertigo, “and the woman is pained in the veins on each side of the head.” Should the womb descend, there would be a “strong sense of choking, loss of speech and sensibility” and, most dramatically, “a very sudden incredible death.”
These Greek men thought of the womb as "an animal within an animal," a conscious being that could cause a woman harm. The ancient medical healers thought the wandering womb had a weakness: scents. It would advance toward fragrant smells, and repel from unpleasant or foul smells. To cure a wandering womb, physicians could lure it back into position with pleasant scents applied to the lady's parts, or drive it away from the upper body and back down where it belongs by having the afflicted sniff foul scents.
To say the ancients did not have a handle on PMS would be an understatement. But it did provide the male dominated society to assert power over their women. To keep the womb from becoming "bored," physicians would proscribe that women become pregnant as often as possible, which would mean having constant sex. Otherwise, it was told, that the womb would rebel.
As crazy as the wandering womb sounds, it does provoke a correlation to the definition of the heart of the island.
The heart of the island was described as the place of "birth, death, and rebirth."
And what is not a womb but a place for birth (pregnancy), death (stillborn to abortions) and rebirth (the passing of one's genetic material to the next generation, i.e. gene immortality).
If the island was symbolic of mankind's womb, things get strange.
We know that the producers and writers never thought of this concept, but in true LOST fan community brainstorming, it is always fun to bring new concepts to the old series.
There are some modern scientists who believe the sole purpose of humans is to procreate. Everything we do is for the purpose of procreation, from getting a quality education, to getting a job, to making money, to gather wealth - - - all positive aspects in acquiring a mate. In some respects, these scientists put our base instincts at a primitive animal level. And the ancient amino acids in our DNA may prove that out one day.
We did have the seemingly important story arc about the island not allowing pregnant women come to term. It was the reason that Ben brought medical specialists like Juliet to the island, even though Alpert complained that it was a distraction from their true (unstated) mission. Dharma women were dying during their pregnancies, while non-Dharma women like Rousseau and Claire could give birth on the island. There was no rhyme or reason for the different results.
Of course, there can be an absurd tangent if one assumes the island is a womb. If the womb is a conscious being onto itself, it may have its own thoughts, dreams (or feeds off the dreams of other people) to create its own universe. It could represent the attacking spermatozoa like Keamy's soldiers while the Others represent white blood cells counterattacking the foreign objects. These biologic elements could be represented by the characters, as avatars, to keep the bored womb excited in her own dream state. (I think this was the basis of Avatar and an episode in Family Guy.)
A womb needs "protection" from unwanted pregnancy. In modern times, a multi-billion dollar industry has developed in the reproductive consumer products and services industries. Even if a woman wants to become pregnant, there are times when a womb does not cooperate (infertility). Pregnancy, like LOST itself, is an inexact science.
