Can it be thought here too hazardous a conjecture to look on this necessary concurrence of the whole animal system, as a sensible proof of the influence it has over the whole body?
“Coition (says Democritus) is a sort of epilepsy.”
“It is (says M. Haller) a most violent action, bordering upon convulsion, and which must therefore astonishingly weaken, being detrimental to the nervous system.”
It has been seen, in an observation precedently set forth, that an emission was preceded by actual convulsions, by a sort of epilepsy; and the same observation furnishes evident proof of the influence which those violent emotions had on the unhappy man who was subjected to them.
The immediateness of the faintness after the act has to many appeared, and not without reason, a proof, that it could not be only the privation of the seed that occasioned it; but what demonstratively proves how much the spasm or convulsion must weaken, is the weakness incident to those who are afflicted with convulsive disorders: that which follows the fits of epilepsy is sometimes excessive.
It could be only to the spasm, or convulsion, that the singular effect was to be imputed, which coition had on one whose name was Amman, and whose history was preserved to us by Platerus. Being advanced in years he had re-married, and being about to consummate his nuptials, he was seized with so violent a suffocation, that he was obliged to discontinue the attempt. The same accident returned every time that he renewed the trial. He applied, upon this, to a number of quacks. One of them, who had made him take a great many of his pretended remedies, assured him that he had no longer any danger to fear. On the faith of his Æsculapius, he ventured upon a fresh attempt. The same symptom was instantly the consequence: however, full of confidence, he would persist, and died in the act itself, in the arms of his wife[63].
Those violent palpitations which sometimes accompany that of coition, are also a convulsive symptom. Hippocrates speaks of a young man, to whom excesses of venery and wine had occasioned, among other symptoms, continual palpitations[64]. And Dolæus knew one, who, in the act itself, was seized with so violent a palpitation, that he must have been suffocated if he had persisted[65].
The case of the child, above quoted, is also a proof, (which did not escape the sagacity of M. Rast,) of the power of the convulsive cause; since at that age he could hardly evacuate any thing but the humor of the prostates, and not genuine seed.
These remarks have fallen under the observation of a number of good authors, who have written upon this matter. Galen seems to have hit upon them, where he says, “Pleasure itself weakens the vital forces.”