Sex, Spirits, and Sensibility: Human Generation in British Medicine, Anatomy, and Literature, 1660-1780
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Sex, Spirits, and Sensibility: Human Generation in British Medicine, Anatomy, and Literature, 1660-1780 Darren Neil Wagner PhD The University of York Department of History September 2013 Abstract This thesis explores the physiological idea of animal spirits in relation to nerves, sex, and reproduction in the culture of sensibility. That physiology held the sex organs of both females and males to be exceptionally sensitive parts of the body that profoundly affected individuals’ constitutions and minds. Sexual sensations, desires, volition, and behaviour depended upon animal spirits and nerves. A central concern in this perception of the body and mind was the conflict between rationality from the intellectual will and sexual feelings from the genitalia. The idea that the body and mind interacted through animal spirits became influential in Georgian culture through anatomical and medical writings, teachings, and visual displays, but also through its resonance in literature about sensibility. This research predominantly draws upon material and print cultures of medicine, anatomy, and literature from 1660-1780. The analysis highlights the roles of gender, markets, literary modes, scientific practices, visual demonstrations, medical vocations, and broader social and political discourses in conceptions of the body and mind in relation to sex and reproduction. Ultimately, this study fleshes out the sensible and sexual body, which cultural and literary historians have frequently referred to, and emphasizes how the organs of generation commanded particular attention and exercised special influence. 2 List of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 2 List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 7 Author’s Declaration ................................................................................................................ 8 Dedication ................................................................................................................................ 9 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 11 Generation ....................................................................................................................... 13 Nerves ............................................................................................................................. 16 Sensibility ........................................................................................................................ 19 Sensible Genitals ............................................................................................................. 22 Sex Difference and Gender Politics ................................................................................ 24 Genres ............................................................................................................................. 31 Chapters ........................................................................................................................... 34 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 36 Figures: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 37 Chapter One: Nerve Physiology, Animal Economy, and Generation Theories ..................... 40 “The Immediate Instrument of the Soul:” Animal Spirits ............................................... 42 “The Most Subtil, Volatile, and Spirituous Matter in Nature:” Seed .............................. 57 Ab Ovo or Homunculi: Gender Politics in Conception and Gestation Theories ............. 72 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 81 Figures: Chapter One ...................................................................................................... 83 Chapter Two: Hung, Drawn, and Quarto-ed; Anatomical Displays of Genitals ................... 92 Anatomy, Sensibility, and Sex ........................................................................................ 95 Inflate, Inject, Erect ....................................................................................................... 100 Sexual Syringe Tropes ............................................................................................ 112 Automata and Wombs ................................................................................................... 116 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 130 Figures: Chapter Two .................................................................................................... 132 Chapter Three: Exquisite Sense—Sexual Pleasure and Pain ............................................... 147 Nerve Physiology of Pleasure and Pain ........................................................................ 151 Innervating the Flesh .............................................................................................. 151 Sensations in Lockean Philosophy ......................................................................... 155 Sensations in Epicurean Philosophy ....................................................................... 158 Physiology of Sexual Sense and Desire .................................................................. 160 Moral-Medicine and Sexual Sensations ........................................................................ 169 3 Health Benefits from Sexual Pleasure .................................................................... 177 Health Problems from Sexual Indulgence .............................................................. 178 Sexual Pleasure and Pain in Literature .......................................................................... 181 Sensual Pleasure, Intellectual Pleasure, and Passions ............................................. 184 Sensation and Desire in Erotic Literature of Sensibility ......................................... 188 Losing Reason, Gaining Pleasure in Erotic Literature of Sensibility ..................... 191 Symptoms of Pleasure as Dramatic Gestures ......................................................... 195 Achieving Sexual Pleasure as a Narrative Structure ............................................... 197 Pain in Erotic Literature .......................................................................................... 200 Pleasure and Pain in Political Philosophy ..................................................................... 202 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 209 Figures: Chapter Three .................................................................................................. 212 Chapter Four: Disorderly Spirits—Sexual, Reproductive, and Mental Maladies ................ 213 Maternal Impressions .................................................................................................... 217 Pica ................................................................................................................................ 223 Febricula ........................................................................................................................ 229 Gonorrhoea .................................................................................................................... 233 From Pleasure to Pain ............................................................................................. 238 Running Seed, Low Spirits ..................................................................................... 242 Gonorrhoea and Mental Illness ............................................................................... 249 Reading Sexual Disease .......................................................................................... 259 Treating Gonorrhoea, Raising the Spirits ............................................................... 265 Gonorrhoea Narratives ............................................................................................ 277 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 285 Figures: Chapter Four .................................................................................................... 290 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 291 From Animal Spirits to Electricity ................................................................................ 294 Electricity in Neurophysiology and Medicine ........................................................ 295 Literature and the New Electric Paradigm .............................................................. 298 List of References ................................................................................................................ 300 Primary Sources ...........................................................................................................