''On Semen'' (''De Semine''), also known as ''On the Seed'' (''Peri spermatos'') is a medical treatise written by the Greek physician

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (; September 129 – AD), often Anglicization, anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Ancient Rome, Roman and Greeks, Greek physician, surgeon, and Philosophy, philosopher. Considered to be one o ...

. In this work, Galen writes about the physiology of animal reproduction, provides detailed anatomical descriptions of the reproductive organs and their purposes, and also deals with inheritance and embryology. The first book of ''On Semen'' is about the contribution of the male to reproduction, and the second book deals with the contribution of the female. Galen wrote it in the 170s, during his second stay in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. It was meant for a large audience that did not need much prior medical knowledge to understand it. The focus of ''On Semen'' is, firstly, to criticize

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

's concept of semen, and secondly, to propose a new one. Going against Aristotle's view that only males produce a reproductive fluid (semen), but agreeing with

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; ; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician and philosopher of the Classical Greece, classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is traditionally referr ...

, Galen defends a two-seed theory which states there is both a male and a female semen, and that conception happens when the two mix together. Galen argues that the double origin of semen explains the differentiation of the sexes and how males and females inherit separate characteristics, and that this cannot be explained by genital differences alone as others believed. Other corrections by Galen of Aristotle in this work include that of Aristotle's view that the testes do not produce sperm and that the male semen only acts as an efficient cause of reproduction. Galen also agreed with Aristotle in other areas, such as placing the origins of semen in the blood. Galen defined semen as "the active principle of the animal", whereas he said that the menstrual blood was the material principle. As the active principle, it informs the design of the body, whereas the material principle (the menstrual blood, which for Galen is the female semen) can be utilized for the construction of the body. For Galen, both played a role in hereditary transmission. Being larger, the testicles contribute more to this process than the ovaries. After conception, Galen proposes a description of the development of the fetus, partly modelled off of the stages of the development of plants: an initial phase of semen, followed by an undifferentiated growth, followed by a differentiation of the three main organs (brain, heart, liver), followed by a complete formation and differentiation of all the parts. Galen believed that the body is made of four elements (water, air, earth, and fire) and that they are distributed differently among men and women, so that men have a greater proportion of the property of hotness and dryness whereas women have more coldness and moisture. Galen also believed that the male offspring develops on the right side of the ovaries but the female offspring on the left side. In 1992, Philipp DeLacy published a critical edition, along with an English translation and commentary, on the work. A brief selected translation was also published in 2012.

Manuscripts

''On Semen'' survives in multiple different forms, through Greek manuscripts and many translations, including: one complete sixteenth-century Greek manuscript (Parisinus Gr. 2279), another fifteenth-century Greek manuscript containing Book 1 (Mosquensis Gr. 466), the Aldine Greek edition published in 1525 (representing a tradition distinct from the two Greek manuscripts), the Arabic translation made by the school of

Hunayn ibn Ishaq Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (808–873; also Hunain or Hunein; ; ; known in Latin as Johannitius) was an influential Arab Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic Abbasid era, he worked w ...

, and the Latin translation made by Niccolo da Reggio.

Editions

A scholarly Greek edition of Galen's ''On Semen'' was published in 1822, in Volume 4 of a 20-volume series of Galen's complete works edited by Karl Gottlob Kühn, titled '' Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia'' ("The Complete Works of Claudius Galen"). This edition is now available online via the

Perseus Digital Library The Perseus Digital Library, formerly known as the Perseus Project, is a free-access digital library founded by Gregory Crane in 1987 and hosted by the Department of Classical Studies of Tufts University. One of the pioneers of digital libraries, ...

. In 1992, another critical edition of ''On Semen'' was published by Philipp DeLacy, alongside an English translation and commentary.

Similar works

Galen wrote one more major treatise about embryology about twenty years after ''On Semen'', this one being titled ''On the Formation of the Feotus''.

Soranus of Ephesus Soranus of Ephesus (; 1st/2nd century AD) was a Ancient Greek medicine, Greek physician. He was born in Ephesus but practiced in Alexandria and subsequently in Rome, and was one of the chief representatives of the Methodic school of medicine. Se ...

also wrote a work titled ''On Semen''. Galen's ''On Semen'' is also different from a Pseudo-Galenic work called ''De spermate''.

References

Sources

Bibliography

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External links

Original Greek text
(Perseus) 2nd-century texts Ancient Greek medical works Works about human pregnancy Semen