ON GENERATION. 481 



pregnant in consequence of the preceding intercourse impreg- 

 nated by a kind of contagion as it appears and duly produced 

 their fawns at the proper time. 



In the dog, rabbit, and several other animals, I have found 

 nothing in the uterus for several days after intercourse. I 

 therefore regard it as demonstrated that after fertile intercourse 

 among viviparous as well as oviparous animals, there are no re- 

 mains in the uterus either of the semen of the male or female 

 emitted in the act, nothing produced by any mixture of these 

 two fluids, as medical writers maintain, nothing of the menstrual 

 blood present as ' matter' in the way Aristotle will have it ; in 

 a word, that there is not necessarily even a trace of the con- 

 ception to be seen immediately after a fruitful union of the 

 sexes. It is not true, consequently, that in a prolific connexion 

 there must be any prepared matter in the uterus which the 

 semen masculinum, acting as a coagulating agent, should con- 

 geal, concoct, and fashion, or bring into a positive generative 

 act, or, by drying its outer surface, include in membranes. 

 Nothing certainly is to be seen within the uterus of the doe 

 for a great number of days, namely, from the middle of Sep- 

 tember up to the 12th of November. 



It appears moreover that all females do not shed seminal 

 fluid into the uterus during intercourse ; that there is no trace 

 either of seminal fluid or menstrual blood in the uterus of the 

 hind or doe, and many other viviparous animals. But as to 

 what it is which is shed by women of warmer temperament no 

 less than by men during intercourse, accompanied with failure 

 of the powers and voluptuous sensations ; whether it be neces- 

 sary to fecundation, whether it come from the testes femi- 

 ninse, and whether it be semen and prolific, is discussed by us 

 elsewhere. 



And whilst I speak of these matters, let gentle minds forgive 

 me, if, recalling the irreparable injuries I have suffered, I here 

 give vent to a sigh. This is the cause of my sorrow : whilst 

 in attendance on his majesty the king during our late troubles 

 and more than civil wars, not only with the permission but by 

 command of the Parliament, certain rapacious hands stripped 

 not only my house of all its furniture, but what is subject of 

 far greater regret with me, my enemies abstracted from my 

 museum the fruits of many years of toil. Whence it has come 



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