pregnant in consequence of the preceding intercourse impreg- nated by a kind of contagion as it appears and duly produced their fawns at the proper time.
In the dog, rabbit, and several other animals, I have found nothing in the uterus for several days after intercourse. I therefore regard it as demonstrated that after fertile intercourse among viviparous as well as oviparous animals, there are no re- mains in the uterus either of the semen of the male or female emitted in the act, nothing produced by any mixture of these two fluids, as medical writers maintain, nothing of the menstrual blood present as ' matter' in the way Aristotle will have it ; in a word, that there is not necessarily even a trace of the con- ception to be seen immediately after a fruitful union of the sexes. It is not true, consequently, that in a prolific connexion there must be any prepared matter in the uterus which the semen masculinum, acting as a coagulating agent, should con- geal, concoct, and fashion, or bring into a positive generative act, or, by drying its outer surface, include in membranes. Nothing certainly is to be seen within the uterus of the doe for a great number of days, namely, from the middle of Sep- tember up to the 12th of November.
It appears moreover that all females do not shed seminal fluid into the uterus during intercourse ; that there is no trace either of seminal fluid or menstrual blood in the uterus of the hind or doe, and many other viviparous animals. But as to what it is which is shed by women of warmer temperament no less than by men during intercourse, accompanied with failure of the powers and voluptuous sensations ; whether it be neces- sary to fecundation, whether it come from the testes femi- ninse, and whether it be semen and prolific, is discussed by us elsewhere.
And whilst I speak of these matters, let gentle minds forgive me, if, recalling the irreparable injuries I have suffered, I here give vent to a sigh. This is the cause of my sorrow : whilst in attendance on his majesty the king during our late troubles and more than civil wars, not only with the permission but by command of the Parliament, certain rapacious hands stripped not only my house of all its furniture, but what is subject of far greater regret with me, my enemies abstracted from my museum the fruits of many years of toil. Whence it has come
31
