DESCRIPTION of the symbols under which the reproductive power was anciently worshipped, having been given in the preceding Essay, the present one will contain some account of the negation or absence of that faculty, whether total or partial, as known under the names of Impotency and Sterility.
Potency or power, as regards the generative act, may be defined as—the aptitude or ability to beget; and Impotency, the negation or absence of such power.
The canon law distinguished three kinds of impotency—viz., that which proceeds from frigidity; that which is caused by sorcery (ligature or point-tying), and that which proceeding from some defect of conformation is properly designated as impotentia coeundi. The different lends of impotency may be thus classed—1. Those which are proper to men; 2. Those proper to women, and 3. Those common to both sexes.
The causes of impotency proper to man are natural frigidity; defect of conformation, and accident.
The causes of impotency proper to women are all such obstacles as arise ex clausurâ uteri aut nimia arctitudine.
The causes common both to men and women are the defect of puberty and imperfect conformation.[39]
Impotency may also be divided into natural and accidental; the former being that which a person is born with, or which proceeds ex vitio naturalis temperamenti vel partium genitalium; and the latter that which arises from some accident, as ex casu vel morbo.[40]
Another definition of impotency in man is the non posse seminare in vase idoneo; three things being considered as indispensable to his due performance of the generative act.—Ut arriget or erection; 2, Ut vas fœmineum resaret, or intromission, and 3, Ut in vase seminat, or emission.
Sterility must not be confounded with impotency. Many women are barren, but very few are impotent; while, on the contrary, many men are impotent who ought not, on that account, to be regarded as barren. In either sex impotency is present when from whatever cause an individual cannot concur in the sexual contact. Sterility exists when the contact, after having been regularly accomplished, is followed by no productive result.