The medical mirror. Or treatise on the impregnation of the human female. Shewing the origin of diseases, and the principles of life and death / By E. Sibly.

Date:
[1796?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical mirror. Or treatise on the impregnation of the human female. Shewing the origin of diseases, and the principles of life and death / By E. Sibly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    know, or did not choofe to recoiled, becaufe it made againft a pre-conceived opinion, that the human feed, when fubjedled to heat, efpecially to fuch a moift and natural heat as thofe parts conftantly afford, foon lofes Its fpiffitude and tenacity, and becomes very fubtilly fluid, and almoft colourlefs. Befides, it is. univerfally acknowledged, that a confiderable part of the femen is almoft always, immediately after coition, rejeded by the female. When we attend to the many iziftance^ of credulity and impofition in the theories of gene- ration, we need not marvel at the aptitude and facihty with which pretended difcoveries creep into notice, and the folemnity with which they obtrude themfelves into fyftems. All the foregoing arguments againft the poffibility of a pervious communication between the vagina and the uterus, are alfo conclufive againft the fuggeftion, that the penis in the act of coition penetrates^into the cavity of the. womb. Nor is the alTertion of thofe who contend that this orifice, by the -turgidity of the parts during coition, naturally opens and dilates itfelf to receive the male feed, marked with the leaft decrree of probability. How is this dilatation of the orifice to be effedled ? Though the whole uterine fyftem, during the venereal aft, be rendered ftiff and turgid by animal defire and influent blood, yet it is more pro- bable that this turgidity would rather comprefs than dilate the orifice; and the ftrudture and texture of the womb feem exceedingly unfavourable to fudden dila- tation by any means whatever. In an unimpregnated or