Inaugural Medical Dissertation on the Procreation of Male Offspring

§. VIII. Indeed, every natural action presupposes that the agent is in a natural state. Therefore, those who find pleasure in procreating their own likeness original: "progenerare sibi simile." The Aristotelian idea that the goal of reproduction is for an organism to produce another being of the same species and nature. should be healthy and not in an unnatural state. Old age, since it is a disease in itself, must be kept away from this act. As for the age of youth, since it is in a state of growth—and generation follows from a surplus of nutrition and growth, being a "heavy weight of life" original: "vitae superpondium." as the Illustrious Wedel Georg Wolfgang Wedel (1645–1721), a highly influential professor of medicine at Jena and Mayoor’s teacher., my once most faithful Preceptor who is to be honored even after his death, likes to say in his Physiologia Reformata—it is less suited for begetting offspring. Jacob Rueff of Zurich A 16th-century surgeon and author of a famous manual on midwifery. agrees in his Book on the Conception and Generation of Man (Book I, Chapter 1), as does Ludovico Bonacioli, who says in his Book on the Formation of the Fetus that younger people (that is, those established below the age of three-sevens i.e., twenty-one years old.) beget meager and imperfect children.

§. IX. Moreover, the Almighty Creator designed two sexes, namely male and female, so that the absolute work of creation might be followed by the business of preservation through self-multiplication. He implanted specific organs in each, though plainly different, so that from their mutual union a human might be born; thus, one cannot procreate a likeness of themselves without the other.

§. X. From this diversity of organs, it follows that they are dedicated to different uses and enjoy different powers or faculties. For nothing happens that does not happen for a certain reason, and no part was made in the body for the sake of a mere name or as a sign.

§. XI. The organs dedicated to generation in both sexes prepare the matter for the future fetus, which goes by the common name of semen; in both sexes, the testes In the 18th century, the term "testes" was used for both male and female gonads; the female "testes" are what we now call ovaries. are dedicated to this same purpose; in women, they come under the name of ovaries. If anyone doubts that these exist in women, let him consult—in addition to many other anatomists—the anatomical treasures of the most eagle-eyed Ruysch Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731), a Dutch botanist and anatomist famous for his incredible anatomical preparations and "Thesaurus Anatomicus.".

§. XII. The ovaries, according to the Excellent Berger Johann Gottfried von Berger (1659–1736), author of Physiologia Medica, a standard textbook of the era., are clusters or bunches of several small vesicles, unequal in size, swollen with clear lymph, and provided with nerves and preparing ves-