Buffon's Natural History, Volume 02 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Mineral, &c. &c

by comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

It is another proof that the superfluous nutriment forms the seminal liquor, that eunuchs, and all mutilated animals, grow larger or thicker than those who have not that deficiency. The superabundance of nutriment not being able to evacuate, for the defect of proper organs, alters the habit of the body; the thighs and haunches of eunuchs grow very large: the reason is evident; after their body has attained the common size, if the superfluous organic molecules found an issue, as in other men, this growth would no longer increase; but as there are no longer organs for the emission of the seminal fluid, which is no more than the superfluous matter which served for growth remains, it endeavours to expand the parts beyond their usual dimensions. Now it is known, that the growth of the bones is made by the extremities, which are soft and spongy, and when they have once acquired solidity, they are no longer capable of extension; and for this reason, the superfluous organic particles can only expand the spongy extremities of bones, which causes the thighs, knees, &c. of eunuchs to thicken so considerably.

But what more strongly proves the truth of our explanation, is the resemblance of children to their parents. A son, in general, more resembles his father than his mother, and the daughter more her mother than her father; because a man has a greater resemblance to a man than to a woman, and a woman resembles more a woman than a man, in respect to the whole habitude of the body; but for the features and particular habits, children sometimes resemble the father, sometimes the mother, and sometimes both. They will have, for example, the father's eyes, and the mouth of the mother, or the complexion of the latter, and the size of the former; which is impossible to be conceived, unless it is admitted that both parents have contributed to the formation of the child, and that consequently there was a mixture of the two seminal fluids.

I acknowledge that resemblances raised many difficulties in my own mind; before I had maturely examined the question of generation, I was prepossessed with ideas of a mixed system, by which it appeared that I could explain in a probable manner every phenomena, excepting resemblances, and these I thought I had found very specious reasons to doubt, and which deceived me a long time, until having minutely observed, with all the exactness I was capable of, a great number of families, and especially the most numerous, I have not been able to resist the multiplicity of proofs; it is only after being fully convinced in this respect, that I have began to think differently, and to credit what I now believe to be the fact.

Besides, although I had found the mode to avoid those arguments that would be made on the subject of mulattos, mongrels, and mules, I could not be prevented from observing that every explanation, where a reason could be given for the phenomena, cannot be satisfactory; and I am now perfectly convinced that the objections which might be used with respect to them, as well as particular parental resemblances, instead of opposing would confirm my explanation.

I now proceed to draw some consequences. In youth the seminal fluid is less abundant, although more stimulating; its quantity encreases to a certain age, because in proportion as we approach that age, the parts of the body become more solid, admit less nutriment, send back a greater quantity to the common reservoirs, and consequently produce a greater abundance of seminal fluid. When the external organs have not been used, persons of a middling age, and even old men, more easily engender than young ones. This is evident in the vegetable system, the older a tree is, the more fruit or seed it produces.

Young people who emit, or force irritation, draw a greater quantity of seminal fluid towards the organs of generation than would naturally arrive there, the consequence is, they cease from growing, become thin, and fall at length into consumptions, and that because they lose by premature, and too often reiterated evacuations, the necessary substance for the growth and nutrition of every part of the body.

Those whose bodies are thin without emaciation, or fleshy without being fat, are the most vigorous; as soon as the superabundant nutriment has begun to form fat, it is always at the expence of the seminal fluid, and other faculties of generation. When also, not only the growth of every part of the body is entirely completed, but the bones are grown solid, the cartilages begin to ossify, the membranes have received all the solidity possible, the fibres are become hard and rough, and at length every part of the body can no longer scarcely admit of nutriment, the fat considerably increases, and the quantity of seminal fluid diminishes, because the superfluous particles, stopped in every part of the body, and the fibres, having no longer any suppleness or elasticity, cannot return it into the reservoirs of generation.

The seminal liquor not only becomes more abundant till a certain age, but it also becomes thicker, and contains a greater quantity of matter under the same bulk. A person, very observant in this point, assured me that the seminal fluid is as heavy again as the blood, and consequently specifically heavier than any other fluid of the body.

When a man is in good health the evacuation of this fluid produces an appetite, and he soon feels the necessity of repairing, by a new nutriment, the loss of the old; from whence it may be concluded, that the most efficacious check to every kind of luxury is abstinence and fasting.