"Mentiturque virum prodigiosa Venus."[42] In the case of man's impotency it often happens, on the contrary, that, with organs to all appearance perfectly formed, he is, nevertheless, impotent. If the woman be organized for receiving, the man is formed for imparting; now, in the majority, of cases, his impotency is such that, although he seems to be provided with abundant stores he is precluded from offering them. ... "Si Coneris, jacet exiguus cum ramice nervus Et quamvis tota palpetur nocte, jacebit."[43] Such, in fact, is the great difficulty of those individuals who have abused their organs and destroyed their sensibility. The erectile tissue whose turgescence is indispensable, no longer admits into its vascular _plexus_ or network, a quantity of fluid sufficient to give the organ the power of penetrating--_jacet exiguus_--and, although it may be supposed that the seminal glands perform their functions perfectly well, and secrete abundantly the fluid peculiar to them, the copulative organ remains paralyzed. This is the impotence which is brought on by old age, and which Ariosto has so forcibly described in the following lines, wherein he relates the futile attempts made upon Angelica by the hermit: Egli l'abbraccia, ed a piacer la tocca: Ed ella dorme, e non più fare ischermo: Or le baccia il bel petto, ora la bocca, Non è, ch'l veggia, in quel loco aspro ed ermo. Ma nel incontro, it suo destrier trabocca Che al desio non risponde, it corpo infirmo: ......... ......... ......... Tutte le vie, tutti i modi tenta, _Ma quel pigre rozzo non però salta_ Indarno el fren gli scoute e li tormenta E non può far che tenga la testa alta.[44] At other times the impotency of the man is independent of the secretion of the fecundating fluid and even of the erection, both of which are regular. In such case it is caused either by the gland not being properly perforated, or by a contraction of the urethral canal, which contraction arrests the seminal fluid at the moment of expulsion, causing it to flow back towards the bladder, or else intercepting the continuous stream and allowing it to run by dribblets only. The former of these imperfections technically called _Hypospsdiæos_ is a vice of conformation in which the penis, instead of being perforated at the summit of the gland, presents its opening at a greater or less distance from the gland, at the lower part of the urethra or at the _perinæum_.