82 EXAMINATIONOF 



iftcnce of a female fluid ; and even that both 

 male and female had two fluids, the one flrong 

 and adive, the other weaker and more fluggiih *. 

 A concurrence of the two ftronger fluids produ- 

 ced a male child, and, of the two weaker, a fe- 

 male. Thus, according to Hippocrates, there 

 exift two kinds of feminal fluids both in the male 

 and in the female. This notion he fupports in 

 the following manner: Several women who 

 produced girls only by their firft: hufl:)and, have 

 had boys by their fecond; and the fame thing 

 has often happened to men who have had two 

 wives. Suppofmg this to be fadl, it admits of 

 an eafy explanation, without having recourfe to 

 two different fluids peculiar to each fex ; for the 

 women who had girls only by the firft hufband, 

 and boys by the fecond, furniflied a greater 

 quantity of particles proper for generation du- 

 ring the firft, than the fecond marriage; or the 

 fec.ond hufband furnifned a greater quantity of 

 generating particles during the time of the fe- 

 cond marriage, than the lirft. If, at the mo- 

 ment of conception, the organic particles of the 

 male are more abundant than thofe of the fe- 

 male, a male child is the refult; and, when the 

 organic particles of the female moft abound, a 

 female child is the confcquence: It is not, there- 

 fore, furpriftng, that the huihand fhouid be foil- 

 ed with fome women, and have the fuperiority 

 over others. 



It 



* See Hippocrat. lib. dc Genitura, p. 129. et lib. del>iaeta, 

 p. 198. Lugd. Bat. torn. i. 16^^. 



