Volume 2

Taylor's principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / [Alfred Swaine Taylor].

  • Taylor, Alfred Swaine, 1806-1880.
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Taylor's principles and practice of medical jurisprudence / [Alfred Swaine Taylor]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/984 (page 3)
    SUB-SECTION A.—IMPOTENCE AND STERILITY Impotence. / Impotency may be rigidly defined as “ the incapability of either sex to allow or grant to the other the legitimate gratification of the sexual desire.” The difference between this and sterility must be carefully borne in mind (vide infra), for the one may be a bar to union ora cause for divorce, the other is neither one nor the other in the eyes of the law. The causes of impotency may be thus classified:— General or functional, un-'j Age. ('Any of which may lead to, connected directly with >- Illness. j or cause, temporary, or the sexual organs. J Emotion. \ permanent, incapacity. Local or organic, in direct^ Congenital /Curable. connection with the l or acquired J Doubtfully curable, sexual organs. ) conditions, (incurable. All of which groups must be noticed separately. (1) Age as a cause of Impotency.—In Females.—As the woman is in effect a mere passive agent in the sexual act, there can be no limit to the oldest age at which she can be potent to allow the act, provided she be free from disease or deformity ; whether she has her sexual instincts still preserved or not has nothing to do with the matter, though we have no reason to believe that mere age ever extinguishes them while life remains. As regards the youngest age, the law steps in before sixteen, causing the sexual act to be a misdemeanour or a felony (vide “ Rape ”), and therefore before sixteen potency as a possibility need not be considered ; at and above sixteen it is only some other cause than age that can interfere. In Males.—As to the age at which a well-formed male child is capable of getting an erection nothing need be said ; it is a function inherent in the structure of a healthy penis, and a question on the subject cannot arise. At the other end of the scale of life records seem to show that a man of eighty is capable of becoming, and has become a (putative) father, and we have no physiological reason for believing that the mere question of “ erectio penis ” can ever arise on the score of age, apart from disease or accident. (2) Illness as a cause of Impotency.—In Females.—Again the mere passive role played by the female prevents any discussion on this point. A woman who has a natural vagina cannot by any general disease be rendered impotent. In Males.—It is far otherwise with the sex that plays the active part.