Transcriber Note
Emphasized text displayed as _Italic Text._
Whole and fractional parts of numbers are displayed: 33-1/2
_Barr's Buffon._
Buffon's Natural History.
CONTAINING
A THEORY OF THE EARTH,
A GENERAL
_HISTORY OF MAN_,
OF THE BRUTE CREATION, AND OF
VEGETABLES, MINERALS,
&c. &c.
FROM THE FRENCH.
WITH NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.
IN TEN VOLUMES.
VOL. IV.
London:
PRINTED FOR THE PROPRIETOR,
AND SOLD BY H. D. SYMONDS, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1807.
T. Gillet, Printer, Wild-court.
CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.
Page
_Infancy continued_ 1
Chap. III. _Of Puberty_ 23
Chap. IV. _A Description of Man_ 62
Chap. V. _Of Old Age and Death_ 95
Chap. VI. _Of the Sense of Seeing_ 137
Chap. VII. _Of the Sense of Hearing_ 159
Chap. VIII. _Of the Senses in General_ 171
Chap. IX. _Of the Varieties in the Human Species_ 190
_Directions for placing the Plates._
Page 91, Fig. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
BUFFON'S NATURAL HISTORY.
INFANCY CONTINUED.
Infants, when newly born, sleep much, though with frequent
interruptions. As they are also in frequent want of nourishment, they
ought in the day to receive the breast every time they awake. The
greatest part of the first month they pass in sleep, and do not seem
to awake, but from a sense of pain or hunger; their sleep, therefore,
generally terminates with a fit of crying. As they are compelled to
remain in the same position in the cradle, confined by shackles, their
situation soon becomes painful. Their excrements, whose acrimony is
offensive to their tender and very delicate skin, often render them
wet and chilly; and in this distress, by their cries alone can they
call for relief. With the utmost assiduity ought this relief to be
given them; or rather such inconveniences ought to be prevented by
frequently changing part of their cloathing both night and day. The
Savages deem this an object so essential, that though their changes of
skins cannot possibly be so frequent as ours of linen, yet they supply
this deficiency by the use of other substances; of which there is no
necessity to be sparing. In North-America, a quantity of dust obtained
from wood that has been gnawed by worms is placed at the bottom of the
cradle, and which they renew as often as appears requisite. On this
powder the infant is laid, and covered with skins; and though a bed
of feathers, it is pretended, cannot be more soft and easy, yet it is
not used to indulge the delicacy of the child, but to keep it clean;
which in effect it does, by drawing off the moisture of every kind. In
Virginia, they place the child naked upon a plank covered with cotton,
and provided with a hole as a passage for the excrement. Here the cold
is often unfavourable to such a practice; but it is almost general in
the East of Europe, and especially in Turkey. This custom has this
further advantage, it precludes all care, and is the most certain
method of preventing the ill effects which too frequently result from
the usual negligence of nurses. It is maternal affection alone which is
capable of supporting that continual vigilance, that minute attention,
which a new-born infant requires. How then can such vigilance, such
care, be expected from a mercenary groveling nurse?
Some nurses desert their children for several hours without feeling
the smallest anxiety; and others are so cruel as to be unaffected with
their cries; then do the helpless innocents seem to be in a kind of
despair; then do they exert every effort of which they are capable;
and, till their strength actually forsakes them, implore assistance by
their cries. If these violent agitations do not create some distemper,
they discompose, however, the temperament and constitution of the
child, and even influence perhaps its disposition.
There is another abuse which lazy nurses are frequently guilty of:
instead of employing effectual methods for pleasing the infant, they
rock it furiously in the cradle; this procures a momentary cessation
of its cries, by confusing its brain, and if long continued stuns the
child into a sleep. But this sort of sleep is merely a palliative, and
so far is the agitation by which it was obtained from removing the
cause of complaint, that it may disorder the head and stomach, and be
the foundation of future disorders of very fatal consequence.
Before children are put into the cradle, we ought to be certain they
want nothing, and they should never be rocked with such violence as to
confound or stun them. If their sleep is not sound, a slow and equal
motion of the cradle is sufficient to render it so; nor ought they
to be rocked often, for if accustomed to this motion they will not
sleep without it. Though children in good health should sleep long
and spontaneously, yet the temperament of the body may be injured by
too much. In this case they should be roused by gentle motion; their
ears ought to be amused with some soft and agreeable sounds, and their
eyes with some brilliant and striking objects. It is at this age they
receive their first impressions from the sense, and these are, perhaps,
of more future importance than many may imagine.
The eyes of infants are always directed to the strongest light in the
room, and if from the child's situation only one eye can be directed to
it, the other, for want of exercise, will remain more weak. To prevent
this inconvenience the foot of the cradle ought to be so placed that
the light, whether it comes from a window or a candle, may front it. In
this position both eyes receive it alike, and thus by exercise acquire
equal strength. If one eye becomes stronger than the other, the child
will squint; for it is incontestably proved, that the inequality of
strength in the eyes is the cause of squinting.
For the first and second months, and even for the third and fourth, the
infant, especially when its constitution is weak and delicate, ought
to receive no nourishment but milk from the breast. Whatever be its
strength, it may receive material injury if any other food is given it
during the first month. In Holland, in Italy, in Turkey, and in general
over all the Levant, children have nothing but the breast for a whole
year. The savages of Canada suckle them till they are four or five,
and sometimes six or seven years of age. With us most nurses have not
a sufficiency of milk to satisfy the demands of their children; and in
order to be frugal of what they have, they feed them, even from the
first, with a composition of boiled flour and milk. This nourishment
allays their hunger; but as their stomachs and bowels are yet too weak
to digest a gross and viscous substance, they suffer by it, and not
unoften die by indigestions.
The milk of animals may supply the deficiency of that of the mother in
cases of necessity; but then it is highly necessary the child should
receive it, by sucking the animal's teat, in order that it may be of
an equal and proper warmth, and that by the action of the muscles in
sucking it may mix with the saliva, which facilitates digestion. In the
country I have known several peasants who had no other nurses but ewes;
and these peasants were as vigorous as any that had been suckled by
their mothers.
After two or three months, when the child has acquired strength, they
begin to give it food a little more solid, consisting of a kind of
bread made of flour and milk, which disposes the stomach to receive
the common bread, and such other nutriment as it will afterwards be
accustomed to.
As an introduction to the use of solid food, the consistency of liquid
food is gradually increased, and therefore, after having habituated
the child to flour and milk boiled, they next give it bread diluted
in some convenient fluid. During the first year infants are incapable
of mastication, their teeth still continuing enveloped in the gums,
which are so soft that their feeble resistance can produce no effect
on any solid matter. Some nurses, especially among the common people,
chew the food first, and then give it to the child, a practice from
which, before we reflect upon it, we ought to banish every idea of
disgust, which can make no impression upon infants. So far from feeling
anything of that kind, they as readily receive food from the mouth
of the nurse as from her breasts; nay it seems to proceed, from a
natural propensity, by its being introduced in a number of countries
widely different from each other. We find it in Italy, in Turkey, in
the greatest part of Asia, in America, in Canada, &c. I conceive it
to be highly useful, from being the only method by which the stomach
of children can be furnished with the saliva that is required for
the digestion of solid food. If the nurse chews a bit of bread, her
saliva dilutes it, and renders it more nutritious than if it had been
moistened in any other liquid, yet this practice is only necessary till
they are supplied with teeth to chew their food, and dilute it with
their own saliva.
The incisores, or fore teeth, are eight in number, four in the front of
each jaw-bone. These generally appear first, though seldom till seven,
eight, or ten months. Some few infants have been born with teeth so
sharp as to cut their nurse's nipple. The original substance of the
teeth is lodged in sockets, and covered by the gums, to the bottom
of which it extends its roots, and pressing forward by little and
little, at length forces its way through them. Though this operation is
natural, it is not, however, consonant to the general laws of Nature,
which constantly operate upon the human body, without exciting any
painful sensation. Here Nature makes a violent and an excruciating
effort, which is sometimes attended with fatal consequences. In
breeding their teeth children lose their sprightliness, and become
peevish and restless. The gums are at first red and swelled, and
afterwards, when the pressure is ready to intercept the course of the
blood in the veins, they appear white. They are constantly applying
their fingers to the affected part as if endeavouring to assuage its
irritation: they obtain further relief by putting into their mouth a
bit of ivory, coral, or any other hard and polished substance they
are supplied with, which they rub on that part of the gums that is
most affected. This action relaxes the parts, and affords a momentary
cessation of the pain; it also helps to attenuate the membrane of the
gum, which, from the double pressure it then sustains, must break the
more easily; yet this laceration, or rupture of the gums, is frequently
attended with no small degree of pain and danger. When the gums are
more firm than usual, by the solidity of the fibres of which they
are composed, their resistance to the action of the tooth is more
obstinate, and occasions an inflammation, with all its deadly symptoms.
In order to preclude this, an incision may be successfully made on the
gum, by means of which minute operation the inflammation ceases, and
the teeth obtain a free passage.
The canine, or dog teeth, which are next to the incisores, are in
number four, and commonly appear in the ninth or tenth month. About the
end of the first, or in the course of the second year, sixteen other
teeth appear, which are called molares, or grinders, four of which are
situated on each side of the dog teeth. The periods for the cutting of
the teeth vary in different children, and though it is pretended that
those of the upper jaw usually appear first, yet it often happens that
they are preceded by those of the under.
The incisores, the canine, and the first four of the molares, are
generally shed in the fifth, sixth, or seventh year, but they are
commonly replaced by others in the seventh year, though sometimes
not till the age of puberty. The shedding of these sixteen teeth is
occasioned by the expansion in the gums for the new set which are at
the bottom of the sockets, and by their growth press out the first.
There not being any beneath the other grinders they remain, unless
forced out by accident, and when lost they are hardly ever recovered.
There are four other teeth still, which are situated at the extremity
of each jaw, but which every person does not have. These seldom appear
till the age of puberty, and sometimes later; they are called dentes
sapientiæ, or wisdom-teeth, and either appear one after another, or two
at a time. The only reason of there being a variety in the number of
teeth, which is from 28 to 32, is the irregularity of the wisdom-teeth.
Women, it has been observed, have generally fewer teeth than men.
Some authors pretend that the teeth would continue to grow through
life, if it were not for their continual attrition, occasioned by the
food on which man subsists, and increase in size (as is the case in
several animals) in proportion as he advances in age. But this opinion
is contradicted by experience; for persons who live wholly on liquid
nutriment have not teeth longer than those who live on solid food, and
if any thing is capable of wearing the teeth, it is rather their mutual
friction one against another than mastication. Besides, they possibly
deceive themselves by confounding teeth with tusks, as to the growth
of the former in certain animals. The tusks of the wild boar and
elephant, for example, continue to grow during life, but it is highly
improbable that the teeth of either, when once arrived at their natural
size, should afterwards increase. Tusks have a greater affinity, by
far, with horns than with teeth; but this is not the proper place to
enter into their specific differences, nor shall any thing further be
added, than that the first set of teeth in children is of a substance
less solid than the subsequent one, and more loosely fixed in the jaws.
It is often asserted, that the first hair of children is always
brown, but that it presently falls off, and is succeeded by hair of a
different colour. Whether the remark is just or not I cannot determine,
but the hair of most children is fair, and, in many instances, almost
white. In some it is red, and in others black, yet in those who are
to have fair or brown complexions, the hair in the earliest stage of
infancy, is fair in a greater or less degree. Those who give a promise
of future fairness have generally blue eyes, those likely to be red
have a yellowish shade in their eyes, and those who will be brown have
a darker yellow; but colours are very imperfectly distinguished in the
eyes of new-born infants, because they have almost all the semblance of
blue.
When a child is suffered to cry too violently, and too long, it may
in consequence be afflicted with a rupture, in which case an early
application of bandages is necessary; with this assistance the
complaint is removed with ease, without it the disease may last for
life.
The limits of my plan admit not a detail of every disease incidental to
children. I shall only remark, that worms, and all verminous diseases,
very evidently owe their origin to the nature of their food. Milk is a
kind of chyle, an unadulterated nutriment; it consists of organic and
generative substances, and, therefore, if not digested by the stomach,
and made use of in the expansion and growth of the body, it assumes,
by its essential activity, other forms, and produces animated beings,
particularly worms, in such quantities, that the infant is often in
danger of falling a victim to them. A part of the bad effects that
accrue from worms, might probably be prevented, by allowing children
to drink a little wine, because all fermented liquors counteract the
generation of worms, and besides contain but few organic nutritive
particles: it is chiefly by its action upon the solids that wine
gives strength, and it may be rather said to fortify the body than to
strengthen it. Besides, the generality of children are fond of wine, at
least easily accustomed to drink it.
However delicate the frame may be in infancy, it is yet less sensible
of cold than during any other period of life. As the pulse of infants
is more quick than that of adults, it may, from this circumstance
alone, be concluded, that the internal heat is proportionally greater.
On the same principle it is hardly to be doubted, that of this heat
small animals have a greater share than the large; it has invariably
been found, that, in the same degree the animal is small, the motion
of the heart and arteries is proportionally vigorous and quick; and
this is ever the case in the same as well as in different species. The
pulse of an infant, or of a man of small stature, is more frequent than
that of a grown person, or a man of a large size. The pulse of an ox is
slower, and a dog quicker than that of a man; and so precipitate are
the motions in the heart of an animal still smaller, as a sparrow, for
instance, they can hardly be counted.
Till the age of three years the life of an infant is highly precarious.
In the course of the ensuing two or three years, however, it becomes
more certain; and at the age of six or seven a child has a greater
probability of living than at any other age. By consulting Simpson's
tables of the degrees of mortality, at different ages, as applicable
to London, it appears, that, of a certain number of children, born at
one time, above a fourth of them died in the first year, above a third
in two years, and, at least, one half in the first three years. If
this calculation is just a wager might be proposed, that an infant,
when born, would not live three years. A man who dies at the age of
twenty-five is to be lamented for the short duration of his life; and
yet, according to these tables, one half of mankind die before the
age of three years, consequently, every individual who has passed his
third year, far from repining at his fate, ought to consider himself
as treated with superior favour by his Creator. But this mortality in
children is by no means so great in every place as in London. M. Dupré
de St. Maur has proved, by a number of experiments made in France, that
one half of the children born at the same time are not extinct in less
than seven or eight years. By these experiments it is also shewn, that
at the age of five, six, or seven years, the life of a child is more
certain than at any other age, and that an equal bet may be laid for 42
years more, whereas in proportion as a child lives beyond five, six, or
seven years, the probable number of years it will live decreases. At
twelve years, for instance, the equal chance is only for 39 years; at
20, for 33-1/2; at 30, for 20; and thus forward, till the age of 85,
when there is an equal chance of living three years longer.[A]
[A] In the course of this volume we shall present our readers with a
table, at large, of the different probabilities of human life.
There is one thing very remarkable in the growth of the human body.
The foetus in the womb continues to increase more and more in equal
periods, till the birth. The infant, on the contrary, increases less
and less, that is in the same period of time, till the age of puberty,
to which it seems to bound, as it were, at once. The foetus, for
example, is an inch long in the first month, two inches and a quarter
in the second; three inches and a half in the third; five inches and
upwards in the fourth; six inches and a half, or even seven inches,
in the fifth; eight inches and a half, or nine inches, in the sixth;
eleven inches, in the seventh; fourteen inches, in the eighth; and
eighteen inches, in the ninth. Although this measurement may vary in
different children, yet if the child be 18 inches at its birth, it will
hot increase more than six or seven inches in the first year after:
that is, at the end of the first year, it will be 24 or 25 inches; of
the second, 28 or 29 inches; of the third, only 30, or, at most 32
inches; and from this age till that of puberty, it will not advance
more than one inch and a half, or two inches, in the course of each
year. From these remarks it is evident that the foetus increases
more in a month, towards the close of its residence in the matrix than
the infant does in a year, till it arrives at the age of puberty; when
Nature seems to make one grand effort to unfold the animal machine, and
render her work complete.
So essential is it, that the constitution of the nurse should be sound,
and her juices untainted that we have many instances of diseases being
imparted from the nurse to the infant, and from the infant to the
nurse. Whole villages have been infected with the venereal virus, by
nurses suckling the children of other women.
Were mothers to suckle their own offspring it is probable the latter
would be more strong and vigorous. The milk of a stranger must be
less proper for them than that of the mother, for as the foetus is
nourished in the matrix by a fluid, which bears a strong resemblance
to the milk that is formed in the breasts, the infant, therefore, is
already, as it were, habituated to the milk of its mother. The milk of
any other woman, on the contrary, is a nourishment new to the child,
and sometimes so different from the other that it is difficult to make
the child take it: and if forced will sicken and languish, from not
being able to digest the milk of the nurse; a circumstance which, if
the consequences are not seasonably prevented by the substitution of
another nurse, soon proves fatal.
I cannot help observing, that the custom of crowding a multitude of
children into one place, as in the hospitals of large cities, is
highly repugnant to what ought to be the grand object proposed, their
preservation. The greatest part of such children fall victims to a
kind of scurvy, or to other diseases, from which they might have been
exempted, had they been brought up in different houses, or rather in
the country. The same expence would be sufficient for their support,
and an infinity of lives, in which it is well known consist the real
riches of a state, would be saved.
At twelve or fifteen months infants begin to lisp. _A_ is the vowel
which they articulate with most ease, as it requires nothing more than
the opening of the lips, and forcing out the breath. _E_ requires that
the tongue should be raised as the lips are opened; and is therefore
pronounced with a degree of more trouble. _I_ is attended with greater
difficulty, as in the articulation of the vowel the tongue is elevated
still more, and made to approach the teeth of the upper jaw. In
the pronunciation of _O_, the tongue must be lowered, and the lips
contracted; and in that of _U_, the latter must be also contracted, and
in some degree extended. The first consonants which children pronounce
are those which require the least motion in the organs. Of these the
most easy of articulation are _B_ _M_ and _P_. For that of _B_ and
_P_ it is simply requisite that the lips should be closed and then
opened with quickness, and for that of _M_, that they should be first
opened and then closed with celerity. The articulation of the other
consonants supposes motions more complicated. The pronunciation of _C_
_D_ _G_ _L_ _N_ _Q_ _R_ _S_ and _T_ depend each on a particular action
of the tongue, which it would be very difficult to explain; and for
the pronunciation of _F_, a more continued sound is necessary, than
for that of any other consonant. _A_ being the most easily articulated
of the vowels, as are _B_ _P_ and _M_, of the consonants, we need not
wonder that the first words which children pronounce, in every country,
should be composed of, that vowel, and of those consonants; and that,
for example, in every language, _Baba_, _Mama_, _Papa_, should be the
primitive articulations. They are the most familiar sounds to man, and
the most natural to him, because the most easily pronounced, and the
letters of which they are composed must exist wherever there is any
typical mode for the denotation of sounds.
It is to be observed, however, that as the sounds of several consonants
are nearly similar; those, for instance, of _E_ and _P_, of _C_ and
_S_, of _K_ and _Q_, in certain cases; of _D_ and _T_, of _F_ and
_V_, of _G_ and _J_, of _G_ and _K_, of _L_ and _R_, so there may
be many languages in which such consonants are not to be found. But
in every language, there must be a _B_ or a _P_, a _C_ or an _S_, a
_K_ or a _Q_, a _D_ or a _T_, an _F_ or a _V_ consonant, a _G_ or
a _J_ consonant; an _L_ or an _R_, and in the most contracted of
all alphabets, there cannot be less than six or seven consonants,
for of that number there are simple sounds, which have all a very
sensible difference from each other. Those children who do not readily
articulate _R_, substitute _L_ for it; and in the place of _T_ they
articulate _D_. Indeed _L_ and _D_ require more difficult movements
in the organs than either _R_ or _T_; and it is from this difference,
and from the choice of consonants more or less easy of articulation,
that the softness or the harshness of a language proceeds. But on this
subject it would be superfluous to enlarge.
Some children pronounce distinctly, and repeat whatever is said to
them, at two years, though the generality do not speak for the first
two years and a half, and often not so early. It has been observed,
that those who are most backward, never speak with the same facility
as those who begin to articulate more early, and that those who are in
that respect the most forward, may learn to read before the expiration
of the third year. Some I have myself known, who had begun to read
at two years, and who read to admiration at four. After all, it is
difficult to determine whether there is any advantage to be derived
from such premature education. With so little success indeed, is it
generally attended, that we see and hear of numbers, who, though they
had been prodigies at the age of four, eight, twelve, and sixteen
years, are found, however, at those of twenty-five, or thirty, to
be downright block-heads, or men of very inferior abilities. _I_ am
convinced, therefore, that education is the best, which does not compel
Nature, and which is proportioned to the strength and capacity of the
child.
CHAPTER III.
OF PUBERTY.
Puberty immediately succeeds childhood and attends us to the end of
our days. Till this period arrives the sole object of Nature seems to
have been the growth and preservation of her work. She supplies the
infant with nothing but what is necessary for its bodily increase.
Wrapped up, as it were, within itself, its existence, in some respects,
resembles that of a vegetable, and which it has not the power to
communicate. Presently, however, the principles of life multiply;
and it not only possesses what is necessary for its own being but
sufficient to give existence to others. This superabundance of
life, this source of strength and vigour, impatient of its internal
restraint, vents itself abroad, and the age of puberty is announced
by a number of external and internal marks; it is the spring of life
and the season of pleasure. Of that age may we be enabled to write the
history with such circumspection as to excite in the imagination none
but philosophical ideas! Puberty, however, and the circumstances that
accompany it, as circumcision, castration, virginity, and impotency,
are of too essential consequence in the History of Man to allow a
suppression of facts to which they relate. In giving a detail of them
we shall endeavour to maintain that modest reserve which constitutes
the true decorum of style, that philosophical apathy which may destroy
loose ideas, and give it in words confined to their literal import and
original signification.
Circumcision is a custom very ancient, and which still subsists in the
greatest part of Asia. Among the Hebrews this operation was performed
within eight days after the birth. In Turkey they never perform it
before the age of seven or eight years, and often not even till that
of eleven or twelve. In Persia, the practice is general at the age
of five or six. The wound thus occasioned is healed with caustic or
astringent powders, or with burned paper, which, according to Chardin,
is the most effectual remedy; he adds, that circumcision is attended
with infinite pain when performed on grown persons; that they cannot
stir abroad after it for three weeks or a month, and that sometimes it
proves fatal to them.
In the Maldivia islands they circumcise their children at the age
of seven; and previous to this operation they bathe them in the sea
for six or seven hours, in order to render their skin more soft. The
Israelites made use of a sharpened flint, a custom which the Jews still
continue in most of their synagogues. The Mahometans, however, use a
common knife, or a razor.
Were it not for their precaution in cutting it in childhood, the
Turks, it is alledged, and the inhabitants of many other countries in
which circumcision is practised, would naturally have their prepuces
too long. Boulaye tells us, that in the deserts of Mesopotamia and
Arabia, on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, he saw a number
of Arabian boys, whose prepuces were so long, that, without the aid of
circumcision, he imagined they would be unfit for procreation.
The skin of the eye-lids is also longer in the Oriental than in other
nations. The skin is a substance similar to that of the prepuce; but
what relation, in point of growth, can subsist between two so distant
parts?
Girls in several parts of Arabia, towards the Gulph of Persia and the
Red Sea, are equally subjected to this operation as boys. But in these
countries, as there is no previous overgrowth of the _nymphæ_, they
are not circumcised till they have passed the age of puberty. In other
climates this exuberance is indeed far more early; and it is so general
among the inhabitants of certain countries, as those near the river
Benin, that they circumcise girls as well as boys within eight, or at
most fifteen days after their birth. The circumcision of females is of
great antiquity in Africa; and even Herodotus mentions it as being a
custom of the Ethiopians.
Circumcision may have been founded on necessity, yet infibulation and
castration could never have taken place but from jealousy, or from some
gloomy and superstitious frenzy, some wretched antipathy to the human
race, or from some envious tyrant who enacted laws to make privation a
virtue, and mutilation a merit.
Infibulation is performed upon boys by drawing the prepuce forward,
making an incision, and putting a coarse thread through it, till the
cicatrice is healed; and then, in the room of that, is substituted a
kind of ring, which remains as long as the person pleases who gave
orders for the operation, and sometimes for life. The Oriental monks,
who have made a vow of chastity, wear rings of a large size, in order
that they may be compelled to observe this vow inviolate. We shall
hereafter speak on the infibulation of girls; on this head nothing can
be supposed too fantastic or absurd, which men, borne away by passion,
or immersed in superstition, have scrupled to put in practice.
Though in infancy there is sometimes but one testicle in the scrotum,
and sometimes not any, yet we must not suppose in either case that this
is a real defect. It often happens, that the testicles are retained
in the abdomen, from whence they at length extricate themselves, and
descend to the natural place. This generally happens at the age of
eight or ten years, though sometimes not till that of puberty. They
are scarcely ever concealed after this age, when Nature makes violent
efforts to bring them forward: the same effect is sometimes produced
by some violent motion, as a leap, a fall, &c. Even when the testicles
do not manifest themselves, the procreative powers are not the less
perfect; and it has been observed, that persons in that situation are
often the most vigorous.
There are men who have but one testicle, but this defect is of little
consequence, and in that case is much larger than the usual size.
Others have three, and such are said to possess a vast superiority
of bodily force and vigour. From a view of the animal, creation, we
perceive how much these parts contribute to strength and courage; how
great, for example, is the difference between a bull and an ox, a
wether and a ram, a capon and a cock.
The custom of castrating the human species is of great antiquity. Among
the Egyptians it was the established punishment of adultery. Among
the Romans eunuchs were very numerous; and to this day in Asia, and a
part of Africa, men thus mutilated are employed to attend and act as
guards to the chastity of the women. In Italy, the sole object of this
infamous and cruel operation is to perfect the voice. The Hottentots
cut out one testicle, by the privation of which they imagine they will
become more nimble racers. In other countries, the poor people adopt
the practice in order to prevent their children from being able to
generate, and by that means save them from that distress and anguish
which they themselves experience when they cannot procure food for
their support.
The different kinds of castration are numerous; those intended for
vocal perfection only suffer the extraction of the two testicles; but
those who are instigated by the gloomy distrust of jealousy think their
females far from being safe if guarded by such eunuchs, nor will they
countenance any but what have had the external parts of generation
utterly exterminated.
Amputation is not the only method used for this purpose. Formerly some
people prevented the growth of the testicles, and rendered them useless
by bathing their children in warm water, or in decoctions of plants,
and then pressing and rubbing the testicles till the organization
was destroyed. Others compressed them with an instrument, and it is
pretended, that from this mode of castration the life is not exposed
to the smallest danger.
The amputation of the testicles is not very hazardous; it may be
performed at any age, yet that of infancy is esteemed the most
favourable. The amputation of the whole external parts of generation,
however, is more often mortal than otherwise, especially if performed
after the age of fifteen; and even at the most favourable age, which is
from, seven to ten, it is still attended with danger. The difficulty
of preserving them renders the eunuchs of this species by far the most
valuable. Tavernier says, that in Turkey and Persia they cost five
of six times more than any others. Chardin observes, that the entire
amputation is always accompanied with the most agonizing pain; that it
is performed with tolerable safety on children, but with great danger
after the age of fifteen; that more than a fourth fall victims to it;
and that it takes at least six weeks to heal the wound. Pietro della
Valle, on the other hand, asserts that those who undergo this operation
in Persia, as a punishment for rapes, or other crimes of that nature,
recover from it with ease, even when they are advanced in years, and
that they apply to the wound nothing but a few ashes. Whether those who
suffered the same punishment formerly in Egypt, as related by Diodorus
Siculus, found the consequences of it equally mild, we know not; but,
according to Thevenot, numbers of the children of negroes perish, whom
the Turks force to undergo this operation, although performed at the
early age of between eight to ten.
Besides negro eunuchs, there are others in Turkey, Persia, &c. who
chiefly come from the kingdom of Golconda, the Peninsula on this side
the Ganges, the kingdoms of Assan, Pegu, and Malabar, where their
complexion is grey, and from the Gulph of Bengal, where it is of an
olive colour. There are also white eunuchs from Georgia and Circassia,
tho' not in great numbers. Tavernier says, that during his residence
in Golconda, in 1657, there were not less than 22,000 eunuchs made.
The black ones come from Africa, and chiefly from Ethiopia. Those are
the most prized whose appearance is the most ugly and horrible; a flat
nose, a countenance ghastly, thick large lips and protuberant, and
black straggling teeth are the esteemed qualities. These people have
commonly very fine teeth; but such would be a very great defect in a
black eunuch, who must be a hideous monster.
Eunuchs who have been deprived of only their testicles, still feel
an irritation in the parts that are left, and have the external mark
of desire even more frequently than other men. Those parts, however,
remain, as to size, nearly in the same state as before the operation;
and if this is performed at the age of seven years, an eunuch of
twenty is, in this respect, as a child of seven. If it is not, on the
contrary, performed till the time of puberty, or a little after, the
size is nearly the same as that in other men.
Between the parts of generation and the throat there are particular
connections, altho' we know not the cause. Eunuchs have no beard,
their voice, though shrill and powerful, is never of a deep tone; and
not unoften does the throat become the seat of the secret distemper.
The correspondence which certain parts of the body have with others,
widely remote and of a different nature, ought to be more generally
observed; but we pay too little attention to effects, when we do not
surmise their causes. Thus it is, that though in effect the action
of the animal machine in a great measure depends upon them, these
different affinities remain unexamined with that care they deserve.
In women, there is a great correspondence between the matrix, the
breasts and the head: and how many beneficial facts of this kind might,
be found if a few able physicians would direct their studies to such
discoveries! These muscles, veins, arteries,, and nerves, which they
describe with so much accuracy, and with so much fidelity, are not the
springs which give life to our organization. There resides in organized
bodies certain internal powers, which are by no means guided by the
laws of gross mechanism; instead of attempting to know the nature
of those powers by their effects, the very ideas of them have been
treated as ideal, and endeavours have been made to discard and banish
them from philosophical researches. These very powers, nevertheless,
have maintained their importance in gravitation, in the phenomena of
electricity, &c. But, however evident and universal they may be, as
their action is wholly internal, and they are solely objects of reason,
it is with a kind of unwillingness that they are admitted; inclination
still leads us to judge from external appearances; we form a notion,
that in those appearances every thing consists, and that we are not
allowed to penetrate farther; and thus we effectually turn our hacks
upon that which might lead to refined information.
The ancients, whose genius was less limited, and whose philosophy was
more extended, were not embarrassed at meeting with things they were at
a loss to explain. More intimately acquainted with Nature; with them,
a sympathy, a particular correspondence, was only a phenomenon; but
with us, if we cannot reduce it to our pretended laws of motion, it is
a paradox. They knew that most of the effects of Nature were produced
by means beyond human foresight, they knew it was impossible to reduce
them to any particular principles of action, and modes of operation;
and therefore with them it was sufficient to have remarked a certain
number of relative effects, in order to constitute a cause.
Whether, with the ancients, we call sympathy this peculiar
correspondence of the different parts of the body, or, with the
moderns, we consider it as an unknown relation in the action of the
nerves, it exists through the whole animal economy; and, were the
perfection of the theory of physic our object, too much attention
could not be paid to its effects. But this is not a place to enlarge
on a subject of so much importance. I shall only observe, that this
correspondence between the voice and the organs of generation is
discovered not only in eunuchs but in other men, and even in women. In
men, the voice changes at the age of puberty; and in women, a strong
voice is suspected to indicate a superior propensity to love.
The first sign of puberty is a kind of stiffness in the groin, which
becomes more sensible in walking, or in bending the body forward. This
stiffness is frequently accompanied with pungent pains in the joints,
and also with a new sensation in the parts which characterize the
sexes. The voice is, for some time, harsh and unequal, and afterwards
it becomes more full, strong, and articulate. This change is very
perceptible in boys, but less so in girls, because the sound of their
voices is naturally more acute.
These signs of puberty are common to both the sexes, but there are
others peculiar to each; as in females, the menstrual discharge and
the expansion of the breasts; and in males, the beard, and power of
generating. These signs, it is true, are not alike certain. The beard,
for example, does not always appear precisely at the age of puberty;
and there even exist whole nations where the men have hardly any beard.
There is no nation, however, in which the puberty of the female sex is
not indicated by the enlargement of the breasts.
Universally through the human species women arrive at puberty sooner
than men. But that age is different in different countries, and seems
to depend on the temperature of the climate and the quality of the
food. Among people who live at their ease, and feed plentifully,
children arrive at this state two or three years sooner than those in
the country, and among the poorer classes of people, whose food is
less nourishing and more scanty. In the southern parts of Europe, and
in cities, the majority of girls attain puberty at about twelve years,
and boys at fourteen; but in the regions of the north, and in country
places, the former are hardly so at fourteen, or the latter at sixteen.
Should it be asked why females in every climate are capable of
engendering more early than men? It might be satisfactorily replied,
that men are much larger and stronger, their bones more hard, their
muscles more firm and compact, and therefore a longer time is required
for their growth. And as it is not till after the growth is completed
that the superfluity of the organic particles is dispersed into the
parts of generation, females must of course arrive at maturity sooner
than the males.
In the hot climates of Asia, Africa, and America, girls are generally
mature at ten years of age, and often at nine; and though the menstrual
discharge is less copious in warm countries it is yet more early. The
intervals between are nearly the same in every country, and in this
respect there seems to be a greater difference between individuals than
between nations. In the same climate and nation some women are subject
to the menstrua at the end of every fifteenth day, while others are
free from them for six weeks; but a month, however, two or three days
over or under, is the usual period.
The quantity of the discharge seems to depend on the quantity of
nourishment, and of insensible perspiration. Women who eat much, and
exercise little, have the most copious discharge? in warm countries
it is always least, because the perspiration is great. As to its
duration, it is generally from three to four or five days, though
sometimes to six, seven, and even eight days.
The _material_ causes of it are supposed to be a superfluity of blood
and nutritive particles. The symptoms which precede are certain
indications of repletion; as heat, tension, swelling, and the pains
which women feel, not only in the parts themselves, and the adjoining
ones, but also in the breasts, which swell and discover a surplus of
blood by the _areolæ_, or the circle about the nipple, becoming of a
deeper colour. The eyes are oppressed, and underneath their orbits the
skin assumes a blue or violet tint; the cheeks are flushed; the head is
heavy and full of pain; and the whole body in general is in a state of
oppression from the surcharge of blood.
At the age of puberty the body usually attains its full growth in
length. Just before, young people sometimes increase several inches,
but the quickness of growth is most sudden and perceptible in the
genitals of both sexes. This growth in males is an expansion merely,
but in females it is often attended with a contraction, to which
different appellations have been given in explaining the signs of
virginity.
Mankind, jealous of every kind of pre-eminence, have always put a
superior value on what they could first possess, and that to the
exclusion of others. This species of folly has given a positive entity
to the virginity of women. Virginity, which is nothing but a _moral_,
being a virtue that solely consists in the purity of the heart, men
have, as with one consent, converted into a _physical_ object, and
in which they also fancy themselves much interested. From these
absurd opinions, usages, ceremonies, superstitions, and even awards
and punishments, have been established: abuses the most illicit, and
customs the most shocking and disgraceful, have been authorized. To
ignorant matrons, and to prejudiced physicians, have young women been
obliged to submit the most secret parts of Nature for examination,
without their reflecting that such acts of indecency is a downright
attack upon chastity, and that every immodest, every indelicate
situation, which caused an internal blush, was little less than
prostitution.
The prejudices that have been formed on this head I despair of
removing. Things which mankind take a pleasure in believing, however
nugatory and unreasonable they may be, they will always believe; yet,
as it is the province of history to relate not only the accession
of events, and the circumstances of facts, but also the origin of
predominant opinions and errors, I think it my indispensable duty,
in the History of Man, to examine this favourite idol to which he
sacrifices; to consider what the reasons are by which he is prompted to
pay that adoration, and to enquire whether virginity, as he understands
it, is a real or merely a fabulous divinity.
Fallopius, Vesalus, Bartholin, Heister, Ruysch and many other
anatomists, pretend, that the membrane of the hymen is a substance
which actually exists, and which ought to be numbered among the parts
of generation peculiar to women. They maintain further, that this
membrane is fleshy, very thin in children, but more thick in grown
girls; that it is situated under the orifice of the urethra, and that
it partly closes the passage of the vagina; that there is a hole
pierced through it, sometimes round, sometimes long, so small that a
pea can hardly be passed through in infancy, or a bean at puberty. The
hymen, according to Winflow, is a membranous kind of wrinkle, more or
less circular, and sometimes semi-lunar, with an aperture, in some very
small, and in others more large. Dulaurent, Graaf, Pineus, Mauricea,
and other anatomists, of at least equal reputation and authority with
those first quoted, insist, on the other hand, that the membrane of the
hymen is nothing but a chimera, a part by no means natural to girls,
and express their astonishment that it should have ever been mentioned
as a thing which has an actual and real existence. In confirmation of
this doctrine they adduce a multitude of observations made on girls of
different ages, whom they had dissected, in none of whom this membrane
was to be found. They confess that they have seen, though very rarely,
a membrane that united certain fleshy protuberances, which they call
_carunculæ myrtiformes_; but this membrane they insist is by no means
consonant to the natural state of the parts. Anatomists are not more
united as to the quality and number of these _carunculæ_. Are they
merely wrinkles of the vagina? Are they distinct and separate parts? Do
they belong to the membrane of the hymen? Is their number certain? Is
there only one, or are there many, in the state of virginity? Each of
these questions has been asked, and to each a different answer has been
given.
This contrariety of opinion, as to a fact which depends upon a simple
inspection, is a proof of the eagerness of mankind to discover in
Nature things which alone exist in their own imaginations. Several
anatomists frankly declare they never found either the hymen or
_carunculæ_, even before the age of puberty, while others, in
maintaining that this membrane, and these _carunculæ_ do exist,
confess, that they are substances which vary in form, size, and
consistency, in different subjects; that sometimes in the place of the
hymen there is only a single _caruncula_; that at other times there are
two or more united by a membrane, and that the shape of the aperture
is of different forms. From all these observations what conclusions
are to be drawn, but that the causes of the pretended contraction in
the passage of the vagina are not certain, and that when they do exist
their effect is transient and susceptible of different modifications?
Anatomy leaves no entire certainty as to the existence of this
membrane of the hymen and these _carunculæ_, of course it authorizes
us to reject such tokens of virginity, not only as uncertain but as
imaginary. The effusion of blood, though a more common sign, is not
less equivocal. In every age this has been deemed a certain proof of
virginity; and yet all such proof is nothing, where the entrance of
the vagina is naturally relaxed or dilated. Neither is it confined to
virgins, as many women who pretend not to that denomination, frequently
experience an effusion off blood. From some it flows copiously, and
repeatedly; from others in a very small quantity, and only once; and
from some it never flows at all. This diversity depends on the age,
the health, the conformation of the parts, and a number of other
circumstances. A few of these we shall enumerate, and at the same time
endeavour to investigate the causes of those physical tokens which have
been laid down as certain proofs of virginity.
At the age of puberty, the parts of both sexes undergo a considerable
change. Those of man advance so quickly, that in two or three years
they attain their full growth, those of women also increase at
this period, especially the _nymphæ_, which though before almost
imperceptible, become now large and evident. The menstrual discharge
happens at the same time; and all the parts being still in a state
of growth, swell by an increase of blood, and mutually compress each
other. The orifice of the vagina contracts, though the vagina itself
has considerably increased. The form of this contraction must be
very different in different subjects, for from the information of
anatomists, it appears, there are sometimes four, at others only three
or two _carunculæ_, and that sometimes there is found a circular, or
semi-lunar series of folds and wrinkles. But one thing anatomists have
never told us; namely, that whatever form this contraction may assume,
it never appears before the age of puberty.
In the young girls whom I have had occasion to see dissected, nothing
of that kind was to be found; and having collected several facts on
this subject, I can with confidence maintain, that when a girl has
conversed with a man before puberty, there is no effusion of blood,
provided the disproportion of the parts had not been too great, or the
efforts had not been too violent. At full puberty, on the other hand,
that effusion often happens, even from trifling causes; especially if
she is of a full habit, and regular. This sign of virginity is rarely
observed in such as are meagre or subject to the _fluor albus_; and,
what evidently proves it to be fallacious, is the frequency of its
repetition. In some women four, and even five times, has this pretended
virginity been renewed in the space of two or three years; and often
been successfully practised by some on their deluded husbands upon
being suspected of incontinency, and that purely by abstinence. This
renovation, however, only happens from the fourteenth to about the
eighteenth year. When the growth of the body is finished the parts
remain in the state they then are; and when they assume a different
appearance, it is only by such expedients and artifices as, to mention
here, would be alike unnecessary and improper.
As nothing, therefore, can be more chimerical than the prejudices of
men, with respect to virginity, so nothing can be more uncertain than
the pretended signs of it. A young woman may have commerce with a man,
before the years of puberty, and yet discover no signs of virginity;
yet afterwards, the period of puberty being arrived, this same woman
shall exhibit all these pretended signs, while a real virgin may not
have the smallest effusion whatever. Men, therefore, ought to make
themselves very easy as to this point, and not give a loose, as they
often do, to unjust and idle suspicions.
Were we desirous to obtain an evident and undoubted sign of virginity,
we should search for it among those barbarous nations who, incapable
of instilling, by education, the sentiments of virtue and honour
into their children, secure the chastity of their daughters by
expedient which nothing could have suggested but the rudeness of their
manners. The people of Ethiopia, and other parts of Africa, of Pegu,
Arabia Petræa and other nations of Asia, draw together by a kind of
needle-work, the part which Nature has separated, leaving only a space
sufficient for the necessary evacuations. As the child grows, the parts
gradually adhere; insomuch that, when the time of marriage arrives,
they must unavoidably be disunited by incision. For this infibulation
of girls, as it is a substance not subject to corruption, they use
the fibres of the asbestos. Some tribes only use a kind of ring; to
this practice, wives as well as girls are subjected, with this single
difference, that the ring alloted to the latter cannot be removed, and
in that alloted to the former there is a lock of which the husband
alone possesses the key. But why quote barbarous nations, when we have
similar examples so much nearer home? What is the delicacy on which
some of our neighbours pique themselves, with respect to the chastity
of their wives, but a jealousy, equally barbarous and criminal?
How various are the dispositions, manners, and opinions of different
nations? After what has been here related of the high estimation in
which virginity is held by the bulk of mankind, and of the precautions
and ignomious methods they employ, in order to secure it, could it be
imagined there were other nations who despise it, and who consider the
trouble of removing it as a servile office?
Prompted by superstition, the inhabitants of certain countries resign
the first fruits of virginity to their priests, and sometimes to
their very idols. This privilege is enjoyed by the priests of Cochin
and Calicut; and in Goa, virgins are prostituted, either voluntarily
or forcibly, by their nearest relations to an idol of iron. Of these
vile excesses, gross superstition and a blind sense of the duties
of religion, have been the sources, while motives more earthly have
induced people of other countries eagerly to devote their daughters to
their chiefs. In this manner, without any dishonour, do they prostitute
their daughters in the kingdom of Congo. Nearly the same is the custom
in Turkey, in Persia, and in several other countries, both of Asia and
Africa, where the most eminent nobles deem themselves, in the highest
degree, honoured by receiving from their sovereign, women with whom he
is himself already disgusted.
In the kingdom of Arracan, and in the Philippine islands, a man would
think himself much disgraced were he to espouse a female who had not
been defloured; and it is only by dint of money that a person can be
prevailed with to precede the husband. In the province of Thibet, a
mother will search for a stranger, and earnestly beg of him to put
her daughter in a situation for obtaining a husband. The Laplanders
also prefer such women as have already had a commerce with strangers,
from an idea that they must be possessed of more merit than others,
otherwise they could not have pleased men whom they consider as better
judges of beauty than themselves. In Madagascar, and in several other
countries, women the most dissolute and debauched are those who are
married the soonest. Many more instances might be produced of this
peculiar fancy, which could never have subsisted but from a gross and
utter depravation of manners.
Marriage is the natural state of man after puberty. A man ought to
have but one wife, and a woman but one husband; This is the law of
Nature, the number of females being nearly equal with that of males,
and ignorance and tyranny must have been the leading features where
men have established laws in opposition to it. Reason, humanity, and
justice, complain aloud of those odious seraglios, in which the liberty
and the affections of many women are sacrificed to the brutal passion
of one individual. Are these tyrants of mankind the more happy by this
pre-eminence?--No; surrounded with eunuchs, and with women, useless to
themselves and to other men, the misery they have created is a constant
source of torment and perplexity.
Marriage, therefore, as it is established among us, and among every
other people who are guided by the light of reason and revelation,
is a state which is suited to man, and in which he ought to employ
the additional faculties he has acquired by puberty: by obstinately
persisting in celibacy they will become troublesome, and even fatal.
From a too long continence in either sex diseases may arise, or at
least create irritations so violent, that reason and religion would
not be sufficient to counteract the impetuosity of the passions which
they excite, and thus man may be reduced to a level with the brutes,
which, under the impression of such sensations, become furious and
ungovernable.
The most violent effect of this irritation in women is the _furor
uterinus_, a kind of mania, which disorders their reason and bereaves
them of all sense of shame. With words the most lascivious, and with
actions the most indecent, is this melancholy distemper accompanied and
its origin revealed. I have seen a girl at the age of twelve years, of
a brown but lively and florid complexion, small in size, yet strong
and plump, commit the most indecent actions at the very sight of a
man, from which nothing could divert her, neither the presence of her
mother, expostulation, nor punishment. Her reason, however, forsook
her not, and the paroxysms, which were so violent as to excite horror,
ceased the minute she was left with her own sex. Aristotle says, it
is at this age the irritation is greatest, and girls ought then to be
most attentively watched. The remark may be applicable to the climate
in which he lived, but in countries more cold, the female constitution
does not become warm so early.
When the _furor uterinus_ increases to a certain degree marriage is
no remedy for it and instances there are of its being fatal. Happily
the force of Nature is rarely of itself the cause of such dreadful
passions, even when the temperament inclines to them; and before
they arrive at this extremity many causes must concur, of which the
principal is, an imagination inflamed by licentious conversation and
obscene representations. The contrary temperament is infinitely more
common among women, the generality of whom are, with respect to this
passion, exceedingly cool or indifferent. Of men too, there are many
in whose chastity there is little merit; and some I have known, who,
at the age of twenty-five and thirty, enjoyed a good state of health
without having ever experienced this passion so urgent as to render a
gratification necessary.
From continence there is less to be feared than from excess, as is
strikingly evinced in a number of men, some of whom, by the effects of
the latter, lose their memory; some are deprived of sight; some become
bald, and many have dwindled into a consumption and died.
Of the irreparable injury done to their health by venereal indulgences,
young persons can never be sufficiently warned. How many cease to be
men, or who at least cease to enjoy the faculty of manhood, before the
age of thirty? And how many at fifteen, or eighteen, have received the
infection of a disease, which is not only in itself disgraceful, but
often incurable.
It has already been observed, that at the age of puberty, the growth
usually ceases. It often happens, however, that in the course of
a tedious illness, the body increases more in length, than would
have been the case in a state of perfect health. This is probably
occasioned by the external organs of generation remaining without
action during that period. The organic nutriment, having no irritation
to determine it to those parts, does not reach them; and the want of
this irritation is owing to an imbecility and lassitude of the parts,
which prevent the secretion of the seminal fluid. As the organic
particles, therefore, remain in the mass of blood, the extremities of
the bones are necessarily enlarged, nearly in the same manner as those
of eunuchs. Thus young people, on their recovery from along course
of sickness, are frequently taller, but worst shaped, than formerly.
Some, for instance, become crooked-backed, others crook-legged; and
this, because the still ductile extremities of the bones have been
necessarily extended by the superfluity of the organic particles, whose
only office, in a state of health, would have been the formation of the
seminal fluid.
To produce children is the object of marriage, though this object
is sometimes frustrated. Among the different causes of sterility
there are some alike common to men and women; but as in men they are
more apparent, to men they are more commonly attributed. In both
sexes, sterility is occasioned either by an inherent defect in the
conformation of the organs, or by accidental injuries to the organs
themselves. Among men, the most essential imperfections in the
conformation are those which affect the testicles, or those parts
called the _erectores penis_. The false direction of the urethra,
which is sometimes not only oblique, but badly perforated, is another
obstacle to generation; as is the adherence of the prepuce to the
bridle, which may, however, be corrected. In women, the conformation
of the matrix may likewise be imperfect; and the perpetual closure or
expansion of the orifice of the matrix, are defects which are alike
repugnant to generation. But the most frequent cause of sterility,
both in men and women, is the corruption of the seminal liquid in
the _testes_; for if the secretion, by which the semen be formed, is
vitiated, the fluid must be incapable of impregnation; in which case,
though the organs may have every appearance of being properly qualified
for it, there will be no procreation; but these causes have no external
appearance.
In cases of sterility, different means have been employed to discover
whether the defect was to be imputed to the man or the woman. Of these,
inspection is the chief; and indeed, if the sterility be occasioned by
an external fault in the conformation, this is sufficient. But if the
defect is in the internal organs, it is almost impossible to discover
or remove it. There are men, to all appearance well formed, who want
the genuine sign of a proper conformation; and others who have it in so
slight a degree as to make the mark of virility extremely equivocal.
This is the most animal part of the human frame, and is constantly
under the influence of instinct, and not governed by that of the
mind. Many young persons of the purest ideas have been subjected to
the liveliest sensations, though ignorant of pleasure, or the cause,
and others remain cold and languid notwithstanding the efforts of
imagination.
When sterility does not arise from any defect in external conformation,
it more frequently proceeds from the women than the men; for, besides
the injurious effects of the fluor albus, I conceive there is another
material cause. In the course of my experiments, as related in the
preceding volume, I observed there were small protuberances in the
female testicles which I called glandular bodies; they originate under
the membrane of the testicle, in a short time begin to swell, and then
opening, a fluid issues therefrom; from this time they begin to decay,
and having disappeared, they are immediately succeeded by others, from
which the testicles are constantly undergoing a kind of alteration;
and I am inclined to think, that if any circumstance takes place to
interrupt the necessary exercise of the vessels, the seminal liquor
will become corrupt, and sterility also will follow.
Sometimes conception precedes puberty. Numbers of women have become
mothers before the smallest appearance of the menstrua: and some to
whom this evacuation was never known have brought forth children.
Instances of this occur in our own climate, without travelling for them
to Brazil; where whole nations, we are told, are perpetuated without
any woman being subject to the menstrual discharge; an evident proof,
that it is not the substance of this discharge, but the seminal liquid
of male and female which are essentially necessary to generation. It is
also known that the cessation of the menses, which generally happens
about the age of forty or fifty, does not always disqualify women
from conceiving, and that some women have really become pregnant at
the age of sixty or seventy. These examples, however frequent, may be
considered as exceptions to the general rule; but they are sufficient
to convince us that the menstrual blood is by no means the constituent
principle of generation.
In the ordinary course of Nature women do not conceive before the
menses appear, nor after they have ceased. The age at which men first
acquire the powers of procreation is less distinctly marked. His body
must obtain a certain degree of growth, before the seminal fluid can
be produced; and before it can be formed and perfected, that growth
must become still greater. This usually happens between the age of
twelve and eighteen; but the period at which the procreative faculty
of man ceases, Nature seems to have left undetermined. At sixty or
seventy, when age begins to enfeeble the body, the seminal fluid is
less copious, and often unprolific; yet there are many instances of men
still continuing to procreate at the age of eighty or ninety.
There also are examples of boys who have propagated at eight, nine,
and ten years; and of girls who have conceived at seven, eight, and
nine. But such facts are exceedingly rare, and ought to be classed
as singular phenomena. The external sign of virility appears in
infancy, but that is not sufficient; in order to accomplish the act of
generation, there must be a previous production of semen; and this is
never effected till the growth of the body is nearly finished. At first
the quantity is very small, and for the most part unfruitful.
Some authors have mentioned two signs of conception. The one is,
a kind of tremor which they say begins at the time of conception,
and continues for several days after; the other is taken from the
orifice of the matrix, which they assure us is entirely closed after
conception. These signs are, however, in my opinion, very equivocal, if
not altogether imaginary.
This tremor is mentioned by Hippocrates, and, according to him, it is
so violent as to make the teeth chatter. Galen, on the authority of
some women, imputes this symptom to a contraction of the matrix; others
explain it by a vague sensation of cold over the whole body, and almost
all establish the fact, like Galen, from the testimony of different
women.
Opinions, however, vary as to the changes which happen in the matrix
after conception, some maintaining, that the edges of the orifice are
drawn together so closely that there is not the smallest vacancy left
between them; and others, that these edges are not exactly close till
after the two first months of pregnancy. They nevertheless agree, that
immediately after conception the orifice is closed by a glutinous
humour; that the matrix, which, but for the pregnancy, might receive
through its orifice a substance of the size of a pea, has no longer
any perceptible aperture, and that the difference is so evident that a
skilful midwife may distinguish it. If these assertions were true, even
in the first days of pregnancy, its certainty or uncertainty might be
ascertained.
The advocates on the other side urge, that if after conception the
orifice of the matrix were closed, there could be no superfoetation.
To this it may be replied, that the seminal liquor may penetrate
through the membranes of the matrix; that even the matrix itself
may open to admit the superfoetation; and that at any rate
superfoetations happen so rarely, that they make a very trifling
exception to the general rule. Other authors have maintained, that
this change never appears but in women who have conceived before,
and borne children. In first conceptions, indeed, the difference
must be less sensible; but be it as conspicuous as it may, ought we
thence to conclude that it is a certain and positive sign? No; it is
unaccompanied with sufficient evidence.
Neither from the study of anatomy, nor from experiments, can we, as
to this point, acquire more than general conclusions, which on a
particular examination are often found to be highly erroneous. It is
the same also with respect to the tremor or convulsive cold, which some
women have said they felt at the time of conception. As most women do
not experience this sensation; as others assure us, on the contrary,
that they have felt a burning heat; and, as others still confess, that
they are utter strangers to all such feelings; the natural conclusion
is, that such signs are highly dubious, and that when they do happen,
it is less perhaps in consequence of conception, than of other
consequences.
On this subject I shall add but one fact, from "Parson's Lectures on
Muscular Motion," which proves that the orifice of the matrix does
not close immediately after conception; or that at least the seminal
fluid may even then find a passage into it. A woman of Charles-Town,
in South-Carolina, was delivered, in 1714, of two children, one
immediately after the other. To the utter astonishment of all present,
one child was black and the other white. From this evident testimony
of her infidelity to her husband, the woman acknowledged that a negro
had one day entered her chamber, where her husband had just left her
in bed, and by threats of immediate death compelled her to gratify his
desires. This fact proves that the conception of two or more children
does not always happen at one time, and gives great weight to my
opinion, that the semen penetrates through the texture of the matrix.
Many other equivocal symptoms of pregnancy are said to distinguish
it in the first months; as a slight pain in the region of the matrix
and loins; a numbness over the whole body; a continual drowsiness; a
melancholy and capricious disposition; the tooth-ach, head-ach, and
vertigo; yellow eyes, with the pupils contracted, and lids oppressed;
paleness of countenance, with spots upon it; a depraved appetite, with
loathing, vomiting, and spitting; hysteric symptoms; the fluor albus;
stoppage of the menstrual discharge, or instead of it hæmorrhage; the
secretion of milk in the breasts, &c. Many other symptoms might be
adduced, which are supposed to be the signs of pregnancy, but which are
frequently nothing more than the effects of particular maladies.
Of these we shall leave the discussion to physicians. Were we to
consider each of them in particular, we should deviate too far from
our subject; nor could we do it with advantage, without entering into
a lengthened series of profound investigation. It is with this as
with a number of other subjects that relate to physiology and animal
economy, the authors, very few excepted, who have written on these
subjects, have treated them in a manner so vague, and explained them
by affinities so remote, and hypotheses so false, that it is not
surprising their remarks should have been attended with as little
information as utility.