_Importance of the seminal liquid._
How comes it that an over-abundant emission of seed produces all the
evils I have precedently described? This is what I am actually proceeding
to examine. These causes may be reduced to two, to wit,
The privation of that liquid.
The circumstances accompanying the emission.
An anatomical particularisation of the organs of this secretion; the
conjectures, more or less probable, on the process of nature in that
secretion; with observations on its sensible qualities, would be so many
points of discussion misplaced here. To prove the utility of that liquid
to the human constitution, is all that is essential to the purposes of
this work; and this is to be done by the testimonies of the most eminent
physicians, including withal a determination of its effects on the body.
The following Section will be appropriated to an examination of the
effects which are produced by the circumstances that accompany the
emission.
It was the opinion of HIPPOCRATES, that the seed was a secretion from
the whole body, but especially from the head. “The human seed (says he)
proceeds from all the humors of the body, and is the most essential part
of them. This is proved by the weakness, the faintness, which accompanies
the loss of it in the act of coition, be the quantity never so small.
There are veins and nerves, which, from all the parts in the body, concur
to their centre in the parts of generation; when these are turgid, and
genially heated, there is felt in them a stimulation, or pruriency, which
communicating itself to the whole body, carries with it an impression
of pleasure and glowing warmth; the humors enter into a kind of
fermentation, which separates from them all that is the most precious and
balsamic in them; and this part separated from the rest, is carried, by
means of the spinal marrow, to the organs of generation[54].”
GALEN adopts his ideas. “This humor” (says he) “is but the most
subtile, the most refined part of all the others. It has its proper
veins and nerves, which carries it from the whole body, to the seminal
repositories, the testicles[55].”
In another place, he says: “The loss of the seed is at the same time
attended with a loss of vital spirit, so that it is no wonder that
over-frequent coition should enervate the constitution, since it deprives
the body of its purest essence[56].”
The same author has preserved to us, in his History of Philosophy, the
opinions of several philosophers on this subject. May I be allowed to
recite them here?
ARISTOTLE, whose works of natural philosophy will be in esteem as long as
the value of observations shall be known, with a just allowance at once
for the merit and the difficulty of opening the career of them, calls it
“_the excretion of the ultimate aliment_, (which, in terms more clear,
signifies the most perfectly elaborated part of our aliments) _endowed
with the faculty of reproducing bodies in the likeness of that whereby it
was itself produced_.”
PYTHAGORAS calls it, “_the flower, or quintessence of the purest blood_.”
ALCMÆON, his disciple, a great naturalist and an eminent physician, one
of the first that discovered the importance of dissecting animals, and
of all the heathen philosophers, he that appears to have had the truest
ideas of the nature of the soul, ALCMÆON, I say, calls the seed “_a
portion of the brain_.”
PLATO termed it, “_an emanation from the spinal marrow_.”
DEMOCRITUS thought of it as HIPPOCRATES and GALEN.
EPICURE, that respectable character, who better knew than any one, that
it was pleasure alone that constituted the happiness of man, but who
at the same time fixed the nature of those pleasures by such rules as
the Christian Hero would not disown, or object to them: yes, EPICURE,
whose doctrine has been so cruelly disfigured and blackened by the
Stoics, that those who knew nothing of him but through the chanel of
their information, have suffered themselves to be misled by it in their
opinion, to such a degree, that they have mistaken for a libertine, a
debauchee, a man, “who (as M. FENELON observes) was of an exemplary
continency, and whose morals were extremely regular.” To which I shall
add, that his principles are the most severe censure on the tenets of
his _pretended_ modern sectaries, who knowing nothing of him but his
name, most basely and unworthily misuse it, by employing it to authorise
systems of infamy, which he would abhor, and by which those men of
probity and sense, who love the truth, ought not to permit his memory to
be dishonoured, if so it was that men, themselves lost to honour, could
dishonour any one. EPICURE, I say, looked on the seed as a particle of
the soul and the body, and grounded, upon this idea, his precepts for the
chary preservation of it.
Though many of these opinions differ in some measure, they all agree to
prove how precious this humor was held.
It has been a question whether it has any analogy to any other humor?
Or is it the same with that liquid, which, under the name of the animal
spirits, conveyed by the nerves, concurs to all the functions of the
animal machine that are of any, though ever so little importance, and of
which the depravation produces such an infinity of evils, so frequent
and so unaccountable? To answer this question positively, it would be
requisite first to know intimately the nature of these two humors; and we
are very far from having as yet reached that degree of knowledge: we can
at best propose nothing more than ingenious and probable conjectures.
HOFFMAN says, “It is easy enough to conceive how there is such a close
alliance between the brain and the testicles, since both those organs
separate from the blood the most subtile and the most exquisite lymph,
destined to give force and motion to the parts, and even to have an
influence on the functions of the soul. So that it is not possible but
that an over-abundant dissipation of these liquids should destroy the
strength of the mind and body[57].”
Elsewhere he says, “That the seminal liquid is like the animal spirits,
which are separated from the brain, distributed through all the nerves
of the body, and seems to be of the same nature; whence it comes, that
the more of it is dissipated, the less there is secreted of the animal
spirits.”
M. DE GORTER is in the same idea. “The seed (says he) is the most
perfect, the most importantly essential of all the animal liquids: it
is also the most elaborate; it is the result of all the digestions; its
intimate connection with the animal spirits, proves that, like them, it
draws its origin from the most perfect humors[58].”
In short, it appears by these testimonies, and by a croud of others
which it would be superfluous to quote, that it is a liquid of the
utmost importance; that it might be called the _essential oil_ of the
animal liquids; or, perhaps more correctly, the _spiritus rector_, the
dissipation of which leaves the other humors weak, and, in some measure,
dead or vapid.
But whatever may be the original importance of this humor, it may be
objected, that since it is separated from the others, and deposited in
its appropriate reservoirs, of what use can it be to the body after this
its separation? It is granted, they will say, that an over-abundant
evacuation of those humors, which are in actual circulation through the
vessels, and by that very circulation contribute to nutrition, such as
the blood, the serosity, the lymph, &c. may weaken; but it is not so easy
to conceive how a humor, that is no longer in circulation, that is, in a
state of separation, can produce this effect.
I answer, in the first place, that examples of this kind, and too
frequent not to be generally known, ought to obviate such an objection.
Who might not have observed, that an evacuation of milk (to go no further
than that instance) though moderate and of no long duration, is capable
of weakening a nurse that has not a strong constitution, to such a
degree, that she may feel the influences of it for the rest of her life?
And even the robustest would sink under it, if continued beyond a certain
length of time. The reason is sensibly apparent. Upon evacuating too
often the reservoirs appropriated to the reception of any liquid, the
humors are, by a necessary consequence of the laws of the animal machine,
determined to an afflux thither in the greater abundance. This secretion
becomes excessive, all the others suffer by it, and especially nutrition,
which is but a kind of secretion; the animal constitution falls into
languor and debility.
Secondly, There is an answer, relative to the seed which does not hold
as to the milk, which is only a liquid simply nutritious, of which
an over-abundant secretion does no detriment, but in so much as it
diminishes the quantity of humors: whereas the seed is an active liquid,
of which the presence produces effects necessary to the play of the
organs, which ceases on its evacuation; a liquid, of which, for that very
reason, the superfluous emission is detrimental, in a double view. This
requires explanation.
There are humors, such as those of the sweat and perspiration, which
leave the body as soon as they are separated from the other humors, and
thrown out by the vessels of circulation.
There are others, such as the urine, which, after this separation and
expulsion, are retained, for a certain time, in reservoirs appropriated
for that purpose, and out of which they are not discharged, but when
they are in a quantity great enough to excite, in those reservoirs, an
irritation that mechanically forces them to void them.
There is a third sort of humors, which, like the second, are separated
and retained in their respective reservoirs, not for the purpose of
being, at least intirely, evacuated, but to acquire, in those reservoirs,
a perfection that renders them fit for new, or other functions, when
they return into the mass of humors. Such, among others, is the seminal
liquid. Separated in the testicles, it passes thence, by a duct of some
length, into the seminal vesicules, and being constantly repumped by the
absorbent vessels, it is, successively, by little intervals, returned
into the total mass of the humors. This is a truth demonstrable by many
proofs. One alone may suffice. In a healthy man, the secretion of this
liquid is continually formed in the testicles: it flows into these
reservatories of which the capaciousness is very limited, not perhaps
great enough for what is separated in one day; and yet there are men
so continent as not to evacuate any for whole years. What would become
of it, if it was not continually disposed of, by its re-entry through
the vessels of circulation? A re-entry, that is extremely facilitated
by the structure of all the organs that serve for the separation, the
conveyance, and the preservation of this humor. The veins are there much
more considerable than the arteries, and that in such a proportion as is
observed no where else[59]. It is probable then that this resorption is
not only made in the seminal vesicules, but that it has already taken
place in the testicles, in the _epididymises_, which are a kind of first
reservatory appendant to the testicles, and in the _vasa deferentia_, or
chanel by which the seed is conveyed from the testicles to the seminal
vesicules.
It was not unknown to GALEN that the humors were inriched by the retained
seed, though he was not apprized of the mechanism.
“Every thing (says he) is full of it, with those who abstain from venery;
but there is none of it to be found with those who abandon themselves to
excesses of that sensuality.”
He then labors hard to discover why a small quantity of that liquid can
give so much strength to the body; at length he decides, “that it has an
exquisite virtue, so that it can with surprising quickness communicate
its energy to all parts of the body[60].”
He proves afterwards, by various examples, that a small cause often
produces great effects, and at length concludes thus: “Needs it be any
wonder that the testicles furnish a liquid of a nature to diffuse fresh
vigor over the whole body, when the brain produces motion and sensation,
and the heart gives pulse to the arteries!”
I shall wind up this Section with what one of the greatest men of the age
(M. HALLER) says on the seminal humor.
“The seed is kept in the seminal vesicules till the man makes use of it,
or that nocturnal pollutions deprive him of it. During all that time,
the quantity there is of it excites the animal system to the venereal
act; but the greatest quantity of this seed, the most volatile, the most
odorous, that which has the most strength, is repumped into the blood,
and produces, at its entrance into it, the most surprising changes; the
beard, the hair, calluses; it alters the voice and manner: for it is
not age that produces in animals this change; it is the seed alone that
operates them, and they are never remarked in eunuchs[61].”
How does the seed operate these effects? Ay, that is a problem of which
the solution is not perhaps as yet mature. But this however may, with
great probability, be said, that this liquid is a stimulative, a goad,
that irritates the parts with which it is in contact: its strong odor,
and the palpable irritation it exercises on the organs of generation,
leave, as to that, no doubt; nor is it unconceivable that these acrid
particles, being continually resorbed and removed with the humors,
should, slightly at least, but continually, stimulate the vessels, which,
by that very means, contract themselves with the more force; their action
upon the fluids is then the more efficacious, the circulation the more
animated, the more lively, the nutrition the more exact, and all the
other functions executed in the more perfect manner for it: whereas, when
this aid is denied or failed, several functions never display themselves,
or take place, which is the case in eunuchs[62]; and all are defectively
performed, and the worse for that want.
Here then occurs a natural enough question; it is this: How comes it
that Eunuchs are not afflicted with the same evils as those who exhaust
themselves by excesses of venery?
It is hardly possible to answer this question, satisfactorily, till the
end of the following Section.