The relative influence of the sexes considered, in reference to propagation, as well in man as in the lower ranks of animals.

  • Wright, John (d. 1852)
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The relative influence of the sexes considered, in reference to propagation, as well in man as in the lower ranks of animals. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    tution is thus taxed, necessarily follows; and to meet such exigency, recourse is had to stimulating fluids, and artificial treatment, of whatever kind, promises to recruit the declining strength. Hence a state of nervous excitement, to which the animal system holds no just relation, is being almost per- petually maintained, and which discovers itself, most of all, in impotent attempts to gratify a fleshly inclination. Where the primary cause of mischief alone prevails, as the conducting a mer- cantile or other active employment which shall involve incessant bustle and anxiety, and that too, under circumstances of atmospheric noisomeness, the consequences are felt, though in a less humili- ating degree, in a reproductive effort. An irrita- bility disproportioned to physical aptitude com- monly incites such men to sexual negotiations which, if not inefficiently performed, require to be aided by all the artifices that a voluptuous imagi- nation can suggest. And in resorting to the use of pitiful expedients, I need hardly remark that, of a verity, they resign all pretensions to manliness in the sight of those on whom their caresses are lavished. Women can only be charmed by men, so long as the latter preserve the dignity of their sex : when they cease to do that, as in the instance of the emasculated subjects in question, they are permitted to retain the privilege of copulation, as