The generative organs : considered anatomically, physically, and philosophically / a posthumous work of Emanuel Swedenborg ... translated from the Latin by James John Garth Wilkinson.

  • Swedenborg, Emanuel, 1688-1772.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The generative organs : considered anatomically, physically, and philosophically / a posthumous work of Emanuel Swedenborg ... translated from the Latin by James John Garth Wilkinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    sternum and the vertebrse. This part is intermediate. Thus heat or cold would easily penetrate, and would trouble the mechanism and motion of the very heart itself. However that they are also formed for the sake of the milk, but as a matter of natural necessity, appears from the case of the males of other animals, which have the mammae not under the breast, but under the belly. Writers indeed have brought together a number of cases, in which even the male breasts have given forth milk; see for many of these T. Bartholin's Anatome (p. 333, 334), where he cites Bodinus, Joachim Camerarius, P. Castellius, Al. Bene- dictus, and Ch. A. Vega, Aristotle, Matthiolus, Abensina, C. Schenckius, Jno. Ehodius, [Santorellus,] Walseus, A. Bene- dictus again, Nicolaus, Gemma, Vesalius, M. Donatus, Aqua- pendens, Cardanus; and Bartholin relates that similar cases are observed at the present day.* 23. Now these propositions are proved by the swelling of the breasts in pregnant women several months before delivery, and particularly during the few days immediately preceding it; for the child which is now fast coming to its maturity no longer emulges from the mother through the umbilical vessels any great quantity of serous blood; but feeds through the pores of the skin, from its own liquor amnii; consequently the maternal serosity is deter- mined in another direction; and in short, through the nearest way by the subclavians and axillaries to the breasts. Therefore in order to prevent ivhat takes place in males, namely, the dis- charge of all this supply of serum by the kidneys or other chan- nels, women have the menstrual flux. This portion, in its finer half, thus enters the milk; wherefore the breasts also come to- gether with the menses. But as much is here said which requires distinct experimental confirmations, we only touch upon these propositions, for the sake of putting them upon record. * In the edition of T. Bartholin to which we have referred, 8vo., Leyden, 1673, we find that the above writers are said to record cases of milk existing in virgins, men, women not pregnant, also he-goats ; but Bartholin appears to make no men- tion of the cases observed at the present day, although he speaks of instances of milk existing in males in the new world. We all know how common it is to find a milky humor oozing from the nipples of new-born infants.—Tr. V