The medical mirror. Or treatise on the impregnation of the human female. Shewing the origin of diseases, and the principles of life and death / By E. Sibly.

Date:
[1796?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical mirror. Or treatise on the impregnation of the human female. Shewing the origin of diseases, and the principles of life and death / By E. Sibly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the body in general ]ofes its fucculency ; and a newr exiftence Teems to take place. The voice, a proof of the tenfion and rigidity of the mufcular fibre, lofing Its tendernefs and inequalities, becomes ungratefully harlh; and the mind itfelf, aduated by the progrefs of the body, and forgetting all its former inclinations and attachments, acquires diftindlly new propenfities and paffions. The changes are not entirely the efFed of ordinarily progreffive age and ftrength; neither are they promoted by intercourfe with the world for caf- tration will anticipate them, and premature venery, or even gradual familiarity, and early onanifm, wiUdimi- nifh them. Boys who have been fubjeded to caftration never acquire either that ftrengh of body or capacity of mind which dignifies the complete nialei and the fame cruel and unnatural operation performed on brute animals diminifiies their bodily ftrength, their courage, and liberty, and the fiercenefs of their temper. If fuch are the efi-e6ls of the feminal fluid when reforbed by the male, how powerful muft it be when fuddenly mingled, and moft probably in greater quan- -tity, with the circulating fluids of the attrading female! Coition, or rather the abforption of the feminal fluid of the male by the female, even when not fucceeded by impregnation, induces an alteration very general over the female fyftem. The local influence of which may be inferred from the general change which it is capable of inducing during complete healthj from the relief which it efleduates in many fpecies of difeafcj and from the general vivacity and cheerfulnefs difl'ufed over