The Constituents of Semen--Function of the Prostate--The Properties of
Semen--Aphrodisiacs--Alcohol, Opium, etc.--Anaphrodisiacs--The Stimulant
Influence of Semen in Coitus--The Internal Effects of Testicular
Secretions--The Influence of Ovarian Secretion.
The germ cell never comes into the sphere of consciousness and cannot
therefore concern us in the psychological study of the phenomena of the
sexual instinct. But it is otherwise with the sperm cell, and the seminal
fluid has a relationship, both direct and indirect, to psychic phenomena
which it is now necessary to discuss.
While the spermatozoa are formed in the glandular tissue of the testes,
the seminal fluid as finally emitted in detumescence is not a purely
testicular product, but is formed by mixture with the fluids poured out at
or before detumescence by various glands which open into the urethra, and
notably the prostate.[129] This is a purely sexual gland, which in animals
only becomes large and active during the breeding season, and may even be
hardly distinguishable at other times; moreover, if the testes are removed
in infancy, the prostate remains rudimentary, so that during recent years
removal of the testes has been widely advocated and practiced for that
hypertrophy of the prostate which is sometimes a distressing ailment of
old age. It is the prostatic fluid, according to Fürbringer, which imparts
its characteristic odor to semen. It appears, however, to be the main
function of the prostatic fluid to arouse and maintain the motility of the
spermatozoa; before meeting the prostatic fluid the spermatozoa are
motionless; that fluid seems to furnish a thinner medium in which they
for the first time gain their full vitality.[130]
When at length the semen is ejaculated, it contains various substances
which may be separated from it,[131] and possesses various qualities, some
of which have only lately been investigated, while others have evidently
been known to mankind from a very early period. "When held for some time
in the mouth," remarked John Hunter, "it produces a warmth similar to
spices, which lasts some time."[132] Possibly this fact first suggested
that semen might, when ingested, possess valuable stimulant qualities, a
discovery which has been made by various savages, notably by the
Australian aborigines, who, in many parts of Australia, administer a
potion of semen to dying or feeble members of the tribe.[133] It is
perhaps noteworthy that in Central Africa the testes of the goat are
consumed as an aphrodisiac.[134] In eighteenth century Europe, Schurig, in
his _Spermatologia_, still found it necessary to discuss at considerable
length the possible medical properties of human semen, giving many
prescriptions which contained it.[135] The stimulation produced by the
ingestion of semen would appear to form in some cases a part of the
attraction exerted by _fellatio_; De Sade emphasized this point; and in a
case recorded by Howard semen appears to have acted as a stimulant for
which the craving was as irresistible as is that for alcohol in
dipsomania.[136]
It must be remembered that the early history of this subject is
more or less inextricably commingled with folk-lore practices of
magical origin, not necessarily founded on actual observation of
the physiological effects of consuming the semen or testes. Thus,
according to W.H. Pearse (_Scalpel_, December, 1897), it is the
custom in Cornwall for country maids to eat the testicles of the
young male lambs when they are castrated in the spring, the
survival, probably, of a very ancient religious cult. (I have not
myself been able to hear of this custom in Cornwall.) In
Burchard's Penitential (Cap. CLIV, Wasserschleben, op. cit., p.
660) seven years' penance is assigned to the woman who swallows
her husband's semen to make him love her more. In the seventeenth
century (as shown in William Salmon's _London Dispensatory_,
1678) semen was still considered to be good against witchcraft
and also valuable as a love-philter, in which latter capacity its
use still survives. (Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites_, pp. 343, 355.)
In an earlier age (Picart, quoted by Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_,
p. 109) the Manichæans, it is said, sprinkled their eucharistic
bread with human semen, a custom followed by the Albigenses.
The belief, perhaps founded in experience, that semen possesses
medical and stimulant virtues was doubtless fortified by the
ancient opinion that the spinal cord is the source of this fluid.
This was not only held by the highest medical authorities in
Greece, but also in India and Persia.
The semen is thus a natural stimulant, a physiological
aphrodisiac, the type of a class of drugs which have been known
and cultivated in all parts of the world from time immemorial.
(Dufour has discussed the aphrodisiacs used in ancient Rome,
_Histoire de la Prostitution_, vol. II, ch. 21.) It would be vain
to attempt to enumerate all the foods and medicaments to which
has been ascribed an influence in heightening the sexual impulse.
(Thus, in the sixteenth century, aphrodisiacal virtues were
attributed to an immense variety of foods by Liébault in his
_Thresor des Remèdes Secrets pour les Maladies des Femmes_, 1585,
pp. 104, et seq.) A large number of them certainly have no such
effect at all, but have obtained this credit either on some
magical ground or from a mistaken association. Thus the potato,
when first introduced from America, had the reputation of being a
powerful aphrodisiac, and the Elizabethan dramatists contain many
references to this supposed virtue. As we know, potatoes, even
when taken in the largest doses, have not the slightest
aphrodisiac effect, and the Irish peasantry, whose diet consists
very largely of potatoes, are even regarded as possessing an
unusually small measure of sexual feeling. It is probable that
the mistake arose from the fact that potatoes were originally a
luxury, and luxuries frequently tend to be regarded as
aphrodisiacs, since they are consumed under circumstances which
tend to arouse the sexual desires. It is possible also that, as
has been plausibly suggested, the misunderstanding may have been
due to sailors--the first to be familiar with the potato--who
attributed to this particular element of their diet ashore the
generally stimulating qualities of their life in port. The eryngo
(_Eryngium maritimum_), or sea holly, which also had an erotic
reputation in Elizabethan times, may well have acquired it in the
same way. Many other vegetables have a similar reputation, which
they still retain. Thus onions are regarded as aphrodisiacal, and
were so regarded by the Greeks, as we learn from Aristophanes. It
is noteworthy that Marro, a reliable observer, has found that in
Italy, both in prisons and asylums, lascivious people are fond of
onions (_La Pubertà_, p. 297), and it may perhaps be worth while
to recall the observation of Sérieux that in a woman in whom the
sexual instinct only awoke in middle age there was a horror of
leeks. In some countries, and especially in Belgium, celery is
popularly looked upon as a sexual stimulant. Various condiments,
again, have the same reputation, perhaps because they are hot and
because sexual desire is regarded, rightly enough, as a kind of
heat. Fish--skate, for instance, and notably oysters and other
shellfish--are very widely regarded as aphrodisiacs, and Kisch
attributes this property to caviar. It is probable that all these
and other foods which have obtained this reputation, in so far as
they have any action whatever on the sexual appetite, only
possess it by virtue of their generally nutritious and
stimulating qualities, and not by the presence of any special
principle having a selective action on the sexual sphere. A
beefsteak is probably as powerful a sexual stimulant as any food;
a nutritious food, however, which is at the same time easily
digestible, and thus requiring less expenditure of energy for its
absorption, may well exert a specially rapid and conspicuous
stimulant effect. But it is not possible to draw a line, and, as
Aquinas long since said, if we wish to maintain ourselves in a
state of purity we shall fear even an immoderate use of bread and
water.
More definitely aphrodisiacal effects are produced by drugs, and
especially by drugs which in large doses are poisons. The
aphrodisiac with the widest popular reputation is cantharides,
but its sexually exciting effects are merely an accidental result
of its action in causing inflammation of the genito-urinary
passage, and it is both an uncertain and a dangerous result,
except in skillful hands and when administered in small doses.
Nux vomica (with its alkaloid strychnia), by virtue of its
special action on the spinal cord, has a notably pronounced
effect in heightening the irritability of the spinal ejaculatory
center, though it by no means necessarily exerts any
strengthening influence. Alcohol exerts a sexually exciting
effect, but in a different manner; it produces little stimulation
of the cord and, indeed, even paralyzes the lumbar sexual center
in large doses, but it has an influence on the peripheral
nerve-endings and on the skin, and also on the cerebral centers,
tending to arouse desire and to diminish inhibition. In this
latter way, as Adler remarks, it may, in small doses, under some
circumstances, be beneficial in men with an excessive
nervousness or dread of coitus, and women, in whom orgasm has
been difficult to reach, have frequently found this facilitated
by some previous indulgence in alcohol. The aphrodisiac effect of
alcohol seems specially marked on women. But against the use of
alcohol as an aphrodisiac it must be remembered that it is far
from being a tonic to detumescence, at all events in men, and
that there is much evidence tending to show that not only chronic
alcoholism, but even procreation during intoxication is perilous
to the offspring (see, e.g., Andriezen, _Journal of Mental
Science_, January, 1905, and cf. W.C. Sullivan, "Alcoholism and
Suicidal Impulses," ib., April, 1898, p. 268); it may be added
that Bunge has found a very high proportion of cases of
immoderate use of alcohol in the fathers of women unable to
suckle their infants (G. von Bunge, _Die Zunehmende Unfähigkeit
der Frauen ihre Kinder zu Stillen_, 1903) while even an
approximation to the drunken state is far from being a desirable
prelude to the creation of a new human being. It is obvious that
those who wish, for any reason, to cultivate a strict chastity of
thought and feeling would do well to avoid alcohol altogether, or
only in its lightest forms and in moderation. The aphrodisiacal
effects of wine have long been known; Ovid refers to them (e.g.,
_Ars Am._, Bk. III, 765). Clement of Alexandria, who was
something of a man of science as well as a Christian moralist,
points out the influence of wine in producing lasciviousness and
sexual precocity. (_Pædagogus_, Bk. II, Chapter II). Chaucer
makes the Wife of Bath say in the Wife of Bath's Prologue:--
"And, after wyn, on Venus moste [needs] I thinke:
For al so siken as cold engendreth hayl,
A likerous mouth moste have a likerous tayl,
In womman vinolent is no defense,
This knowen lechours by experience."
Alcohol, as Chaucer pointed out, comes to the aid of the man, who
is unscrupulous in his efforts to overcome a woman, and this not
merely by virtue of its aphrodisiacal effects, and the apparently
special influence which it seems to exert on women, but also
because it lulls the mental and emotional characteristics which
are the guardians of personality. A correspondent who has
questioned on this point a number of prostitutes he has known,
writes: "Their accounts of the first fall were nearly always the
same. They got to know a 'gentleman,' and on one occasion they
drank too much; before they quite realized what was happening
they were no longer virgins." "In the mental areas, under the
influence of alcohol," Schmiedeberg remarks (in his _Elements of
Pharmacology_), "the finer degrees of observation, judgment, and
reflection are the first to disappear, while the remaining mental
functions remain in a normal condition. The soldier acts more
boldly because he notices dangers less and reflects over them
less; the orator does not allow himself to be influenced by any
disturbing side-considerations as to his audience, hence he
speaks more freely and spiritedly; self-consciousness is lost to
a very great extent, and many are astounded at the ease with
which they can express their thoughts, and at the acuteness of
their judgment in matters which, when they are perfectly sober,
with difficulty reach their minds; and then afterwards they are
ashamed at their mistakes."
The action of opium in small doses is also to some extent
aphrodisiacal; it slightly stimulates both the brain and the
spinal cord, and has sensory effects on the skin like alcohol;
these effects are favored by the state of agreeable dreaminess it
produces. In the seventeenth century Venette (_La Génération de
l'Homme_, Part II, Chapter V) strongly recommended small doses of
opium, then little known, for this purpose; he had himself, he
says, in illness experienced its joys, "a shadow of those of
heaven." In India opium (as well as cannabis indica) has long
been a not uncommon aphrodisiac; it is specially used to diminish
local sensibility, delaying the orgasm and thus prolonging the
sexual act. (W.D. Sutherland, "De Impotentia," _Indian Medical
Gazette_, January, 1900). Its more direct and stimulating
influence on the sexual emotions seems indicated by the statement
that prostitutes are found standing outside the opium-smoking
dens of Bombay, but not outside the neighboring liquor shops.
(G.C. Lucas, _Lancet_, February 2, 1884.) Like alcohol, opium
seems to have a marked aphrodisiacal effect on women. The case is
recorded of a mentally deranged girl, with no nymphomania though
she masturbated, who on taking small doses of opium at once
showed signs of nymphomania, following men about, etc. (_American
Journal Obstetrics_, May, 1901, p. 74.) It may well be believed
that opium acts beneficially in men when the ejaculatory centers
are weak but irritable; but its actions are too widespread over
the organism to make it in any degree a valuable aphrodisiac.
Various other drugs have more or less reputation as aphrodisiacs;
thus bromide of gold, a nervous and glandular stimulant, is said
to have as one of its effects a heightening of sexual feeling.
Yohimbin, an alkaloid derived from the West African Yohimbehe
tree, has obtained considerable repute during recent years in the
treatment of impotence; in some cases (see, e.g., Toff's results,
summarized in _British Medical Journal_, February 18, 1905) it
has produced good results, apparently by increasing the blood
supply to the sexual organs, but has not been successful in all
cases or in all hands. It must always be remembered that in cases
of psychical impotence suggestion necessarily exerts a beneficial
influence, and this may work through any drug or merely with the
aid of bread pills. All exercise, often even walking, may be a
sexual stimulant, and it is scarcely necessary to add that
powerful stimulation of the skin in the sexual sphere, and more
especially of the nates, is often a more effective aphrodisiac
than any drug, whether the irritation is purely mechanical, as by
flogging, or mechanico-chemical, as by urtication or the
application of nettles. Among the Malays (with whom both men and
women often use a variety of plants as aphrodisiacs, according to
Vaughan Stevens) Breitenstein states (_21 Jahre in India_, Theil
I, p. 228) that both massage and gymnastics are used to increase
sexual powers. The local application of electricity is one of the
most powerful of aphrodisiacs, and McMordie found on applying one
pole to a uterine sound in the uterus and the other to the
abdominal wall that in the majority of healthy women the orgasm
occurred.
Among anaphrodisiacs, or sexual sedatives, bromide of potassium,
by virtue of its antidotal relationship to strychnia, is one of
the drugs whose action is most definite, though, while it dulls
sexual desire, it also dulls all the nervous and cerebral
activities. Camphor has an ancient reputation as an
anaphrodisiac, and its use in this respect was known to the Arabs
(as may be seen by a reference to it in the _Perfumed Garden_),
while, as Hyrtl mentions (loc. cit. ii, p. 94), rue (_Ruta
graveolens_) was considered a sexual sedative by the monks of
old, who on this account assiduously cultivated it in their
cloister gardens to make _vinum rutæ_. Recently heroin in large
doses (see, e.g., Becker, _Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift_,
November 23, 1903) has been found to have a useful effect in this
direction. It may be doubted, however, whether there is any
satisfactory and reliable anaphrodisiac. Charcot, indeed, it is
said, used to declare that the only anaphrodisiac in which he had
any confidence was that used by the uncle of Heloïse in the case
of Abelard. "_Cela_ (he would add with a grim smile) _tranche la
difficulte_."
If semen is a stimulant when ingested, it is easy to suppose that it may
exert a similar action on the woman who receives it into the vagina in
normal sexual congress. It is by no means improbable that, as Mattei
argued in 1878, this is actually the case. It is known that the vagina
possesses considerable absorptive power. Thus Coen and Levi, among others,
have shown that if a tampon soaked in a solution of iodine is introduced
into the vagina, iodine will be found in the urine within an hour. And the
same is true of various other substances.[137] If the vagina absorbs drugs
it probably absorbs semen. Toff, of Braila (Roumania), who attaches much
importance to such absorption, considers that it must be analogous to the
ingestion of organic extractives. It is due to this influence, he
believes, that weak and anæmic girls so often become full-blooded and
robust after marriage, and lose their nervous tendencies and shyness.[138]
It is, however, most certainly a mistake to suppose that the beneficial
influence of coitus on women is exclusively, or even mainly, dependent
upon the absorption of semen. This is conclusively demonstrated by the
fact that such beneficial influence is exerted, and in full measure, even
when all precautions have been taken to avoid any contact with the semen.
In so far as _coitus reservatus_ or _interruptus_ may lead to haste or
discomfort which prevents satisfactory orgasm on the part of the woman, it
is without doubt a cause of defective detumescence and incomplete
satisfaction. But if orgasm is complete the beneficial effects of coitus
follow even if there has been no possibility of the absorption of semen.
Even after _coitus interruptus_, if it can be prolonged for a period long
enough for the woman to attain full and complete satisfaction, she is
enabled to experience what she may describe as a feeling of intoxication,
lasting for several hours. It is in the action of the orgasm itself, and
the vascular, secretory, and metabolic activities set up by the psychic
and nervous influence of coitus with a beloved person, that we must seek
the chief key to the effects produced by coitus on women, however these
effects may possibly be still further heightened by the actual absorption
of semen.[139]
The positive action of semen, or rather of the testicular products, has
been much investigated during recent years, and appears on the whole to be
demonstrated. The notable discovery by Brown-Séquard, a quarter of a
century ago, that the ingestion of the testicular juices in states of
debility and senility acted as a beneficial stimulant and tonic, opened
the way to a new field of therapeutics. Many investigators in various
countries have found that testicular extracts, and more especially the
spermin as studied by Poehl,[140] and by him regarded as a positive
katalysator or accelerator of metabolic processes, exert a real influence
in giving tone to the heart and other muscles, and in improving the
metabolism of the tissues even when all influences of mental suggestion
have been excluded.[141]
As the ovaries are strictly analogous to the testes, it was
surmised that ovarian extract might prove a drug equally valuable
with testicular products. As a matter of fact, ovarian extract,
in the form of ovarin, etc., would seem to have proved beneficial
in various disorders, more especially in anæmia and in troubles
due to the artificial menopause. In most conditions, however, in
which it has been employed the results are doubtful or uncertain,
and some authorities believe that the influence of suggestion
plays a considerable part here.
There is, however, another use which is subserved by the testicular
products, a use which may indeed be said to be implied in those uses to
which reference has already been made, but is yet historically the latest
to be realized and studied. It was not until 1869 that Brown-Séquard first
suggested that an important secretion was elaborated by the ductless
glands and received into the circulation, but that suggestion proved to be
epoch-making. If these glandular secretions are so valuable when
administered as drugs to other persons, must they not be of far greater
value when naturally secreted and poured out into the circulation in the
living body? It is now generally believed, on the basis of a large and
various body of evidence, that this is undoubtedly so. In a very crude
form, indeed, this belief is by no means modern. In opposition to the old
writers who were inclined to regard the semen as an excretion which it was
beneficial to expel, there were other ancient authorities who argued that
it was beneficial to retain it as being a vital fluid which, if
reabsorbed, served to invigorate the body. The great physiologist, Haller,
in the middle of the eighteenth century, came very near to the modern
doctrine when he stated in his _Elements of Physiology_ that the sperm
accumulated in the seminical vesicles is pumped back into the blood, and
thus produces the beard and the hair together with the other surprising
changes of puberty which are absent in the eunuch. The reabsorption of
semen can scarcely be said to be a part of the modern physiological
doctrine, but it is at least now generally held that the testes secrete
substances which pass into the circulation and are of immense importance
in the development of the organism.
The experiments of Shattock and Seligmann indicate that the semen and its
reabsorption in the seminal vesicles, or the nervous reactions produced by
its presence, can have no part in the formation of secondary sexual
characters. These investigators occluded the vas deferens in sheep by
ligature, at an early age, rendering them later sterile though not
impotent. The secondary sexual characters appeared as in ordinary sheep.
Spermatogenesis, these inquirers conclude, may be the initial factor, but
the results must be attributed to the elaboration by the testicles of an
internal secretion and its absorption into the general circulation.[142]
When animals are castrated there is enlargement of the ductless glands in
the body, notably the thyroid and the suprarenal capsules.[143] It is
evident, therefore, that the secretions of these ductless glands are in
some degree compensatory to those of the testes. But this compensatory
action is inadequate to produce any sexual development in the absence of
the testes.
We see, therefore, how extremely important is the function of the testis.
Its significance is not alone for the race, it is not simply concerned
with the formation of the spermatozoa which share equally with the ova the
honor of making the mankind of the future. It also has a separate and
distinct function which has reference to the individual. It elaborates
those internal secretions which stimulate and maintain the physical and
mental characters, constituting all that is most masculine in the male
animal, all that makes the man in distinction from the eunuch. Among
various primitive peoples, including those of the European race whence we
ourselves spring, the most solemn form of oath was sworn by placing the
hand on the testes, dimly recognized as the most sacred part of the body.
A crude and passing phase of civilization has ignorantly cast ignominy
upon the sexual organs; the more primitive belief is now justified by our
advancing knowledge.
In these as in other respects the ovaries are precisely analogous
to the testes. They not only form the ova, but they elaborate for
internal use a secretion which develops and maintains the special
physical and mental qualities of womanhood, as the testicular
secretion those of manhood. Moreover, as Cecca and Zappi found,
removal of the ovaries has exactly the same effect on the
abnormal development of the other ductless glands as has removal
of the testes. It is of interest to point out that the internal
secretion of the ovaries and its important functions seem to have
been suggested before any other secretion than the sperm was
attributed to the testes. Early in the nineteenth century Cabanis
argued ("De l'Influence des Sexes sur le Caractère des Idées et
des Affections Morales," _Rapport du Physique et du Moral de
l'Homme_, 1824, vol. ii, p. 18) that the ovaries are secreting
glands, forming a "particular humor" which is reabsorbed into the
blood and imparts excitations which are felt by the whole system
and all its organs.