第24章

Some think that the female contributes semen in coition because the pleasure she experiences is sometimes similar to that of the male, and also is attended by a liquid discharge.But this discharge is not seminal; it is merely proper to the part concerned in each case, for there is a discharge from the uterus which occurs in some women but not in others.It is found in those who are fair-skinned and of a feminine type generally, but not in those who are dark and of a masculine appearance.The amount of this discharge, when it occurs, is sometimes on a different scale from the emission of semen and far exceeds it.Moreover, different kinds of food cause a great difference in the quantity of such discharges; for instance some pungently-flavoured foods cause them to be conspicuously increased.

And as to the pleasure which accompanies coition it is due to emission not only of semen, but also of a spiritus, the coming together of which precedes the emission.This is plain in the case of boys who are not yet able to emit semen, but are near the proper age, and of men who are impotent, for all these are capable of pleasure by attrition.And those who have been injured in the generative organs sometimes suffer from diarrhoea because the secretion, which they are not able to concoct and turn into semen, is diverted into the intestine.Now a boy is like a woman in form, and the woman is as it were an impotent male, for it is through a certain incapacity that the female is female, being incapable of concocting the nutriment in its last stage into semen (and this is either blood or that which is analogous to it in animals which are bloodless owing to the coldness of their nature).As then diarrhoea is caused in the bowels by the insufficient concoction of the blood, so are caused in the blood-vessels all discharges of blood, including that of the catamenia, for this also is such a discharge, only it is natural whereas the others are morbid.

Thus it is clear that it is reasonable to suppose that generation comes from this.For the catamenia are semen not in a pure state but in need of working up, as in the formation of fruits the nutriment is present, when it is not yet sifted thoroughly, but needs working up to purify it.Thus the catamenia cause generation mixture with the semen, as this impure nutriment in plants is nutritious when mixed with pure nutriment.

And a sign that the female does not emit semen is the fact that the pleasure of intercourse is caused by touch in the same region of the female as of the male; and yet is it not from thence that this flow proceeds.Further, it is not all females that have it at all, but only the sanguinea, and not all even of these, but only those whose uterus is not near the hypozoma and which do not lay eggs; it is not found in the animals which have no blood but only the analogous fluid (for what is blood in the former is represented by another fluid in the latter).The reason why neither the latter nor those sanguinea mentioned (i.e.those whose uterus is low and which do not lay eggs)have this effluxion is the dryness of their bodies; this allows but little matter to be secreted, only enough for generation but not enough to be discharged from the body.All animals that are viviparous without producing eggs first (such are man and all quadrupeds which bend their hind-legs outwards, for all these are viviparous without producing eggs)- all these have the catamenia, unless they are defective in development as the mule, only the efflux is not abundant as in women.Details of the facts in each animal have been given in the Enquiries concerning animals.

The catamenia are more abundant in women than in the other animals, and men emit the most semen in proportion to their size.