Cladius Galen of Pergamum

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

  • Involuntary loss was termed ‘gonorrhoea’: ‘it robs the body of its vital breath’; ‘losing sperm amounts to losing the vital spirits’; exhaustion, weakness, dryness of the whole body, thinness, eyes growing hollow, are the resulting symptoms2

Footnotes:

1. Wong, Mildred (December,2001). "Because It’s There: Morals, Medicine and Masturbation in the ineteenth Century." University of Toronto Medical Journal. Vol 79, num 1. pg 263. http://www.utmj.org/issues/79.3/Masturbation.pdf

2. Sumathipala, A., Siribaddana, S.H., Bhugra, D., (2004), Culture-bound syndromes: the story of dhat syndrome. British Journal of Psychiatry. 184: 200-209, table 2