Hippocrates

  • Hippocrates and Galen believed that semen came from all humors of the body. 1

  • Since the time of Hippocrates and Aristotle, it has been believed that there was a coordination between the testicular fluid and the nervous system, brain and cord. 2

  • The ancients note a relation between the semen and the spinal cord, and Hippocrates believed that involuntary seminal losses can cause tabes dorsalis. That they cause spinal weakness is well known. 3

  • Hippocrates called the disease Tabes Dorsalis. He says "it proceeds from the spinal cord, and is frequently met with among newly married people and libertines. There is no fever, the appetite is preserved, but the body falls away. If you interrogate the patients, they will tell you that they feel as if ants were crawling down the spine. If they have connection the congress is fruitless;they lose semen in bed, whether they are troubled with lascivious dreams or not. They lose on horseback or in walking. Their breathing becomes difficult; they fall into a state of feebleness, and suffer from a weight in the head and a singing in the ears. If in this condition, they become affected with a strong fever, and die with cold extremities.4