concerning Animal Impregnation . 
x6y 
SECTION II. 
What is the proximate Cause of Impregnation f 
The preliminary question concerning the criterion of fecun- 
dation being now answered, we are led by a natural transition 
to show by what means this test has been produced. 
Waving all comment on the peculiar circumstances of sexual 
intercourse, as being both irrelevant and indelicate, we shall note 
only one important effect of it, the passage of the fecundating 
fluid of the male into the generative organs of the female, as be- 
ing an indispensable requisite in the human female, and in such 
animals as bear an affinity to it. As this effect of sexual commu- 
nication is so important, it cannot be indifferent to the design 
of nature, to what part of the uterine system the semen should 
be conveyed. It admits of no doubt that it either remains in the 
vagina, passes into the uterus, or else extends its course along 
the fallopian tubes to be applied to the surface of the ovaries, 
which it stimulates, and from which the new animal derives 
its existence ; but whether it be one or other of these, has given 
birth to more physiological controversy, than perhaps any other 
operation of a living animal. 
Those who have entered the lists have ranged themselves 
either on the side of application of the semen to the ovaries by 
means of the tubes ; or on that of the inutility of this process. 
These latter contend for an absorption of this fluid by the va- 
gina, a peculiar excitement of the whole frame as a consequence, 
of which excitement the changes produced on the ovaries are 
to be considered the local effects. But though the question 
has been disputed on both sides with all the zeal of argument 
