[625]. “Qualis imperfectus tamen coitus, quo mentula vaginæ uterique orificio quodammodo tantum applicatur, hoc sub illius affrictione titillatur ipsique semen virile adspergitur, juxta diversorum Autorum observationes Medicas, ad impregnationem Mulieris alicujus interdum sufficit. Valentini Novella Medico legales,” vol. 1. p. 33.
[626]. But contra see Hale P. C. 628 & 8 Inst. 58.
[627]. The period and manner of mutilation have considerable influence on the effects of the process. The complete removal of all the external organs is a much more decisive method of annihilating the propensities connected with them, than any partial amputation, or compression, or ligature of the spermatic cords—“Si soli testiculi abscissi fuerint, non auferuntur desideria; imo sunt valde magna, in quibus peccare possunt ... sed possunt deflorare quamcunque mulierem, nullam tamen impregnare. 1. Valent. Pand. p. 136, vide etiam a p. 62, usque ad 222. De Conjugio Eunuchi.”
The operation is also more effectual when performed in early infancy, than after the period of puberty; venereal desires have been known to subsist in considerable force, and with the usual external signs, even after the removal of the testes in the adult; thus Juvenal, in satirising the vices of the Roman women, says—
“Sunt quas Eunuchi imbelles, ac mollia semper
“Oscula delectant,”——
[628]. An important question here arises as to what shall be legally called Semen, for the secretion emitted is composed of parts, the smaller portion of which only possesses the generative faculty.
It appears from the experiments and observations of our most accurate physiologists, that the fluid expelled in copulation is furnished in a small proportion only by the Testes; that to this a peculiar secretion of the Vesiculæ Seminales is added, and that the chief bulk is made up of the Prostatic liquor, or secretion from the prostate gland; so that the fact of emission in Eunuchs is not extraordinary, although the discharged fluid cannot be said to be Seminal.
[629]. Aut. more alieno retrahat.
[630]. We should indeed be inclined to question the veracity of a witness, who under circumstances of extreme pain, rage and terror, should pretend to any very great sensibility to minuter accidents.