Buffon's Natural History, Volume 03 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c.Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
History
Buffon's Natural History, Volume 03 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c.
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
Natural history
XXIII. In the month of October I opened a ram, and found a great
quantity of seminal liquor in the epididymis; having examined it with
the microscope, I perceived an innumerable multitude of moving bodies,
so numerous, that all the liquor seemed to be entirely composed of
them; as it was too thick, I diluted it with water, but I was surprised
to see the motion of these bodies suddenly stop, though I perceived
them very distinctly; having many times repeated the same observation,
I perceived that the water which diluted the seminal liquors of a man,
a dog, &c. seemed to coagulate that of a ram.
XXIV. I then opened another ram, and in order to prevent the seminal
liquor from coagulating, I permitted the parts of generation to remain
in the body of the animal, and covered it over with warm clothes. By
these precautions I observed the seminal liquor in its fluid state;
it was replete with an infinity of oblong moving bodies, (_fig. 8._)
traversing in various directions; but as soon as the liquor grew cold,
the motion of all these bodies immediately ceased. I diluted the
liquor with warm water, when the motion of the small bodies remained
for three or four minutes. The quantity of these moving bodies was so
great in this liquor, that although diluted, they nearly touched each
other. They were all of the same size and form, but none of them had
tails. Their motion was not very quick, and when it stopped by the
coagulation of the liquor, they did not change their form.
XXV. As I was persuaded, not only by my own theory, but also by the
observations of all those who had made experiments before me, that the
female, as well as the male, has a seminal and prolific liquor; and,
as I had no doubt, but the reservoir of this liquor was the glandular
body of the testicle, where prejudiced anatomists attempted to find the
egg, I purchased several dogs and bitches, and some male and female
rabbits, which I kept separate from each other; and in order to have a
comparative object with the liquor of the female, I again observed the
seminal liquor of a dog, and discovered there the same moving bodies as
described in the XIth experiment.
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