330 GENERATION. 



" 25 sexagenarians gave a proportion, still presenting 

 spermatozoids, of 68*5 per 100. 



" 76 septuagenarians gave a proportion, still presenting 

 spermatozoids, of 59*5 per 100. 



"51 octogenarians gave a proportion, still presenting sper- 

 matozoids, of 48 per 100. 



" 4, having passed the age of 90 years, gave entirely nega- 

 tive results." 



The oldest man, in tbe cases reported by Duplay, was 

 eighty-two, and, in those noted by Dieu, eighty-six years, 

 which latter Dieu fixes as the limit, not having observed sper- 

 matozoids after that age. The observations were made by 

 examining the contents of .the generative passages twenty- 

 four hours after death. Some of the subjects died of acute, 

 and others, of chronic diseases ; but the mode of death did 

 not present any differences in the cases classed with reference 

 to the presence of spermatozoids. As a result of his own and 

 other investigations, Dieu comes to the conclusion that the 

 power of fecundation in the male often persists for a consid- 

 erable time after the power of copulation has been lost sim- 

 ply from incapacity for erection of the penis. 1 



1 DIEU, Recherches sur le sperme des vieillards. Journal de Vanatomie et de la 

 physiologic, Paris, 1867, tome iv., p. 449, et seq. 



