Inaugural Medical Dissertation on the Procreation of Male Offspring

...[the male's role] consists in the communication of essence and form; this is indeed true, but the manner in which it happens must be shown. This is how I establish it: The male, driven by natural instinct to intercourse, for the completion of the work, substantially discharges the seed through the penis into the uterus of the female, whose opening the cervix then gapes open. Whether the seed normally penetrates into the tubes the fallopian tubes, as the celebrated Ruysch Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731) was a famous Dutch anatomist known for his secret techniques in anatomical preservation. observed, and is thus poured over the egg while the tubes are applied to the ovary; or whether it meets and joins with the small egg only after it has been received into the tube or has slipped into the uterus: I confess that this is not yet entirely clear.

During intercourse, however, the whole uterus is moved into a state of tension by the influx of spirits vital or animal spirits, which early modern science believed were subtle fluids that directed bodily motion and sensation. Then the oviducts gape, as if with a thirsty mouth, and the gate lies open for the spirited substance of the male seed to reach the small eggs. The seed, which is by its nature active and elastic, having found space here, expands itself, aided by the heat of the uterus, which increases its expansion. Therefore, being naturally light and raised upward by the heat, it tends through the opening of either tube toward the small eggs.

It strikes one of these eggs—whichever is more mature—and sets into motion its leaping point original: "punctum saliens"; a term used in early embryology for the first visible pulsing of the heart in an embryo, or heart, which is naturally suited to begin movement before the other parts. By this motion, the vessels of the embryo's rudimentary form are unfolded and extended. And thus the rudimentary form begins its life, from which comes its nourishment and growth in size to such an extent that it dilates and ruptures the cicatricula literally "small scar"; here referring to the follicle or the membrane surrounding the egg of the membrane surrounding the egg. Thus separated from the ovary, it is caught by the muscular fringes of the tubes, which, according to Drelincourt Charles Drelincourt (1633–1697) was a French physician to Louis XIV and a professor of medicine. in his Seven Lectures original: "Perioch. VII", "flourish while sexual desire is active, just like the clitoris."

Having been caught in this way, it glides down to the uterus, partly by its own weight and partly by the constriction of the motor fibers. There it is to be further cherished and brought to perfection by suitable fluids supplied by the mother, until the legitimate time for birth arrives.

§. XXII. Therefore, I believe no one—unless they are poorly acquainted with the science of natural philosophy—will doubt that generation, according to what has been said, begins in the testicle at this time, ovaries were commonly called "female testicles" (testes muliebres) and is completed in the cavity of the uterus.

§. XXIII. That glandular substance, which, a few days after intercourse...

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