The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher, Aristotle [best fiction novels of all time .txt] 📗
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There is a difference, also, in the substance, as they are much softer and more pliable, and not nearly so compact. Their size and temperature are also different for they are much colder and smaller than in men, and their covering or enclosure is likewise quite different; for as men's are wrapped in several covers, because they are very pendulous and would be easily injured unless they were so protected by nature, so women's stones, being internal and thus less subject to being hurt, are covered by only one membrane, and are likewise half covered by the peritoneum.
The ejaculatory vessels are two small passages, one on either side, which do not differ in any respect from the spermatic veins in substance. They rise in one place from the bottom of the womb, and do not reach from their other extremity either to the stones or to any other part, but are shut up and impassable, and adhere to the womb as the colon does to the blind gut, and winding half way about; and though the testicles are not close to them and do not touch them, yet they are fastened to them by certain membranes which resemble the wing of a bat, through which certain veins and arteries passing from the end of the testicles may be said to have their passages going from the corners of the womb to the testicles, and these ligaments in women are the cremasters [3] in men, of which I shall speak more fully when I come to describe the male parts of generation.
FOOTNOTES:
[3]
Muscles by which the testicles are drawn up.
CHAPTER XVA Description of the Use and Action of the several Generative Parts in Women.
The external parts, commonly called the pudenda, are designed to cover the great orifice and to receive the man's penis or yard in the act of sexual intercourse, and to give passage to the child and to the urine. The use of the wings and knobs, like myrtle berries, is for the security of the internal parts, closing the orifice and neck of the bladder and by their swelling up, to cause titillation and pleasure in those parts, and also to obstruct the involuntary passage of the urine.
The action of the clitoris in women is similar to that of the penis in men, viz., erection; and its lower end is the glans of the penis, and has the same name. And as the glans of man are the seat of the greatest pleasure in copulation, so is this in the woman.
The action and use of the neck on the womb is the same as that of the penis, viz., erection, brought about in different ways: first, in copulation it becomes erect and made straight for the passage of the penis into the womb; secondly, whilst the passage is filled with the vital blood, it becomes narrower for embracing the penis; and the uses of this erection are twofold:—first, because if the neck of the womb were not erected, the man's yard could find no proper passage to the womb, and, secondly, it hinders any damage or injury that might ensue through the violent striking of the penis during the act of copulation.
The use of the veins that pass through the neck of the womb, is to replenish it with blood and vigour, that so, as the moisture is consumed by the heat engendered by sexual intercourse, it may be renewed by those vessels; but their chief business is to convey nutriment to the womb.
The womb has many properties belonging to it: first, the retention of the impregnated egg, and this is conception, properly so called; secondly, to cherish and nourish it, until Nature has fully formed the child, and brought it to perfection, and then it operates strongly in expelling the child, when the time of its remaining has expired, becoming dilated in an extraordinary manner and so perfectly removed from the senses that they cannot injuriously affect it, retaining within itself a power and strength to eject the foetus, unless it be rendered deficient by any accident; and in such a case remedies must be applied by skilful hands to strengthen it, and enable it to perform its functions; directions for which will be given in the second book.
The use of the preparing vessels is this; the arteries convey the blood to the testicles; some part of it is absorbed in nourishing them, and in the production of these little bladders (which resemble eggs in every particular), through which the vasa preparantia run, and which are absorbed in them; and the function of the veins is to bring back whatever blood remains from the above mentioned use. The vessels of this kind are much shorter in women than in men, because they are nearer to the testicles; this defect is, however, made good by the many intricate windings to which those vessels are subject; for they divide themselves into two branches of different size in the middle and the larger one passes to the testicles.
The stones in women are very useful, for where they are defective, the work of generation is at an end. For though those bladders which are on the outer surface contain no seed, as the followers of Galen and Hippocrates wrongly believed, yet they contain several eggs, generally twenty in each testicle; one of which being impregnated by the animated part of the man's seed in the act of copulation, descends through the oviducts into the womb, and thus in due course of time becomes a living child.
CHAPTER XVIOf the Organs of Generation in Man.
Having given a description of the organs of generation in women, with the anatomy of the fabric of the womb, I shall now, in order to finish the first part of this treatise, describe the organs of generation in men, and how they are fitted for the use for which Nature intended them.
The instrument of generation in men (commonly called the yard, in Latin, penis, from pendo, to hang, because it hangs outside the belly), is an organic part which consists of skin, tendons, veins, arteries, sinews and great ligaments; and is long and round, and on the upper side flattish, seated under the os pubis, and ordained by Nature partly for the evacuation of urine, and partly for conveying the seed into the womb; for which purpose it is full of small pores, through which the seed passes into it, through the vesicula seminalis, [4] and discharges the urine when they make water; besides the common parts, viz., the two nervous bodies, the septum, the urethra, the glans, four muscles and the vessels. The nervous bodies (so called) are surrounded with a thick white, penetrable membrane, but their inner substance is spongy, and consists chiefly of veins, arteries, and nervous fibres, interwoven like a net. And when the nerves are filled with animal vigour and the arteries with hot, eager blood, the penis becomes distended and erect; also the neck of the vesicula urinalis, [5] but when the influx of blood ceases, and when it is absorbed by the veins, the penis becomes limp and flabby. Below those nervous bodies is the urethra, and whenever they swell, it swells also. The penis has four muscles; two shorter ones springing from the Cox endix and which serve for erection, and on that account they are called erectores; two larger, coming from sphincters ani, which serve to dilate the urethra so as to discharge the semen, and these are called dilatantes, or wideners. At the end of the penis is the glans, covered with a very thin membrane, by means of which, and of its nervous substance, it becomes most extremely sensitive, and is the principal seat of pleasure in copulation. The outer covering of the glans is called the preputium (foreskin), which the Jews cut off in circumcision, and it is fastened by the lower part of it to the glans. The penis is also provided with veins, arteries and nerves.
The testiculi, stones or testicles (so called because they testify one to be a man), turn the blood, which is brought to them by the spermatic arteries into seed. They have two sorts of covering, common and proper; there are two of the common, which enfold both the testes. The outer common coat, consists of the cuticula, or true skin, and is called the scrotum, and hangs from the abdomen like a purse; the inner is the membrana carnosa. There are also two proper coats—the outer called cliotrodes, or virginales; the inner albugidia; in the outer the cremaster is inserted. The epididemes, or prostatae are fixed to the upper part of the testes, and from them spring the vasa deferentia, or ejaculatoria, which deposit the seed into the vesicule seminales when they come near the neck of the bladder. There are two of these vesiculae, each like a bunch of grapes, which emit the seed into the urethra in the act of copulation. Near them are the prostatae, about the size of a walnut, and joined to the neck of the bladder. Medical writers do not agree about the use of them, but most are of the opinion that they produce an oily and sloppy discharge to besmear the urethra so as to defend it against the pungency of the seed and urine. But the vessels which convey the blood to the testes, from which the seed is made, are the arteriae spermaticae and there are two of them also. There are likewise two veins, which carry off the remaining blood, and which are called venae spermaticae.
FOOTNOTES:
[4]
Seminal vesicle.
[5]
Urinary vesicle.
CHAPTER XVIIA word of Advice to both Sexes, consisting of several Directions with regard to Copulation.
As Nature has a mutual desire for copulation in every creature, for the increase and propagation of its kind, and more especially in man, the lord of creation and the masterpiece of Nature, in order that such a noble piece of divine workmanship should not perish, something ought to be said concerning it, it being the foundation of everything that we have hitherto been treating of, since without copulation there can be no generation. Seeing, therefore, so much depends upon it, I have thought it necessary, before concluding the first book, to give such directions to both sexes, for the performance of that act, as may appear efficacious to the end for which nature designed it, but it will be done with such caution as not to offend the chastest ear, nor to put the fair sex to the blush when they read it.
In the first place, then, when a married couple from the desire of having children are about to make use of those means that Nature has provided for that purpose, it is well to stimulate the body with generous restoratives, that it may be active and vigorous. And the imagination should be charmed with sweet music, and if all care and thoughts of business be drowned in a glass of rosy wine, so
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