chapter I

have alluded to the very appropriate arrangement which formerly existed when music-teachers were eunuchs, and that our higher circles of society would do well to employ eunuchized coachmen, especially if possessed of susceptible and elopable daughters; but, from the accounts given by Mondat, it would seem that they are not as safe as might at first be imagined. However, they could not be as dangerous as the chief eunuch of the Grand Cherif of Mecca and increase the population to the same extent; but I should judge that they might be a very demoralizing moral element if introduced into modern society. If eunuchs must be employed, it can easily be understood why the Turk and Chinese prefer the real, clean-cut article. The New York "Four Hundred" should make a note of this, as in their present thirst for European aristocratic notions, coats of arms and titles, there is no telling how soon they may cross over into Oriental customs and run a harem, in which case it would be sad to have them make any mistakes in the quality and ability of the eunuch.

Dr. Gardner W. Allen has furnished the American profession with a faithful translation of the valuable work of Professor Ultzmann on "Sterility and Impotence." In this, we have a clear and intelligent dissertation that explains the above conditions, and I am only surprised that the observations of Mondat have not developed such explanations before, as the principle was fully explained in practice fifty years ago by the Montpellier physician. According to Ultzmann, there is a form of fecundating impotence in persons otherwise well provided with an apparent complete apparatus, an impotence which he terms _potentia generandi_. He states, however, that this form of impotence was not recognized until a few years ago, citing the fact that females have had, as a rule, to bear all of the blame for the unfruitfulness of the family, and that they have been accordingly subjected to all manner of operations, general and local treatment, even to being sent to watering places and sanatoria where red-headed male attendants are employed, to say nothing of the prayers, intercessions, pilgrimages, and novenas to the holy shrines, as mentioned in the chapter on the holy prepuce. Ultzmann observes that a man may be perfectly able to go through the procreative or, rather, the copulative act, even to the great satisfaction of all parties concerned, and yet be perfectly impotent; he even goes further, by observing that there are cases in which copulation may take place without any fluid whatever being ejaculated. He mentions two such cases at pages 87 and 116 of his book. In the first instance the ejaculated fluid is precisely as that observed in such cases as those of the eunuchs and of Velutti, mentioned by Mondat, and consisted of an azoöspermic discharge, made up mainly from the secretion of the seminal vesicles, the accessory glands of the urethra, the prostate, and Cowper's glands, as well as the discharge from the secretory glands distributed along the course of the urethral mucous membrane. Some of the cases of this form of impotence have exhibited wonderful copulating desire and power of endurance, and, even if unfecundating, they must be said to be better off than the victims of that other form of male impotence, the _potentia coeundi_ of Ultzmann, where, with a normal semen, either the power of erection or that of ejaculation may be entirely absent.

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