Inaugural Medical Dissertation on the Procreation of Male Offspring

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...endowed with [vessels], all of which are covered by a membrane, lying against both sides of the uterus.

§. XIII. Truly, the male seed original: "semen virile" is a gelatinous-lymphatic part of the blood. It contains within its depth a great abundance of enclosed, agile, fiery and airy original: "△reo Areas" (igneo-aereas). In the chemical shorthand of the time, the triangle △ represents fire. and ethereal particles. It is brought to the testes from the blood—driven by the pulse of the heart through the spermatic arteries—and from the brain through the nerves (see Manget's Jean-Jacques Manget (1652–1742), a Genevan physician known for compiling massive anatomical and medical encyclopedias. Anatomical Theater, Book II, Part II, Chapters 1 & 3). By flowing through such long, variously turned, and complicated narrow passages, it is refined in the epididymides The duct behind the testes where sperm matures.. Thus prepared, it is stored in the seminal vesicles until it is either returned to the blood through the lymphatic vessels to give the body manly strength, or, swelling with the heat of venereal desire, it is emitted through openings into the urethra by the constriction of the fleshy fibers surrounding those receptacles. There, it is received by a more watery original: "▽ſiore" (aquosiore). The inverted triangle ▽ is the alchemical symbol for water. liquid from the prostate glands as if by a vehicle, and is ejaculated into the uterus during the time of intercourse.

The most celebrated Hoffmann Friedrich Hoffmann (1660–1742), a primary figure in 18th-century "systematic" medicine at Halle., in his System of Rational Medicine (Volume 1, page 237, §. V), proves that the male seed is of the same nature as the animal spirits The subtle fluid then believed to flow through nerves to facilitate movement and sensation. in this way: The fluid which is secreted in the vascular framework of the testes seems to be of almost the same character as that which the cortical and vascular substance of the brain separates from the arterial blood. Giving his reason in a scholarly note, he says: For the structure of the testes and the cortex of the brain correspond greatly with one another.

§. XIV. The female seed, however, is not that liquid which flows from the openings of the wrinkled substance of the vagina during intercourse, as the ancients believed—for you may find that even in sterile women (see the Illustrious Heucher's Johann Bartholomaeus Adam Heucher (1677–1747), a professor at Wittenberg who wrote on female anatomy. Treatise on Women). Rather, the female seed consists of the ovules small eggs contained within the "testes" The ovaries were commonly called "female testes" in older anatomy., appearing in the form of vesicles.

§. XV. Furthermore, it is established today among physicians and philosophers alike that every animal is generated from an egg. Whence Nicolaus Steno Niels Stensen (1638–1686), a pioneer in both anatomy and geology who first proposed that the female "testes" were actually ovaries analogous to those of birds. most learnedly said: Every uterus, while it carries a fetus, carries an egg. I, however, say that the uterus, while it carries a fetus of the more elegant sex i.e., female., carries "eggs within an egg." For I assert, having been taught by seeing for myself original: "autopsia." In this period, the term refers to direct observation or dissection rather than a post-mortem exam., that ovules already exist within the [female] fetus. The Excellent Teichmeyer Hermann Friedrich Teichmeyer (1685–1744), a professor at Jena and Mayoor’s mentor, famous for his work in legal medicine and anatomy. has demonstrated the same...