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.