Sperm

“ Now, egg and sperm are the two germinal elements which unite in development. Fertilization takes place by the union of sperm and egg, and inasmuch as the nuclei of each of these structures contain one-half of the number of chromosomes characteristic of the species, [Pg 313] their union in fertilization results in the restoration of the original number of chromosomes. The fertilized ovum is the starting-point of a new organism, and from the method of its fertilization it appears that the parental qualities are passed along to the cells of every tissue. ”

“ In higher orders of animals, fecundation occurs internally, the conjunction of the sperm and germ cells requiring the conjugation of the male and female sexual organs. The sperm-cells of the male furnish the quickening principle, which sets in play all the generative energies, while the germ-cell, susceptible to its vivifying presence, responds with all the conditions necessary to evolution. The special laboratory which furnishes spermatic material is the testes, while the stroma of the ovaries contributes the germ-cell. ”

“ It is only within a few years that closer study has shown that the whole process of fertilization is extremely simple, and entirely without special mystery. Essentially, it consists merely in the fact that the male sperm-cell coalesces with the female egg-cell. Owing to its sinuous movements, the very mobile sperm-cell finds its way to the female egg-cell, penetrates the membrane of the latter by a perforating motion, and coalesces with its cell material. ”

“ Conception usually consists in the bringing into contact with the ovum of a slimy fluid secreted by the male, and this may take place either inside or out of the female body. This fluid is called sperm, or the male seed. Sperm, like saliva or blood, is not a simple fluid, but a thick agglomeration of innumerable cells, swimming about in a comparatively small quantity of fluid. It is not the fluid, but the independent male cells that swim in it, that cause conception. ”

“ After the ovum has reached the womb it remains there for a period of about ten days, after which, if it is not fertilized during that time, it passes out of the womb into the vaginal passage, and so out of the body. But if, at any time after it is ripe for fertilization, that is, from the time it begins its journey from the ovaries to the womb, and while it is in the womb, the ovum is met by the male sperm, it is liable to become fertilized—conception is possible. ”

“ The single sperm which unites with it is a still more minute fleck, and is little more than a nucleus with a film of protoplasm round it, and a long cilium or hair-like continuation which it lashes to and fro, and thus propels itself or swims towards the egg cell. ”

“ The elaboration of both ovules and sperm in the same individual is wasteful of vital energy. The concentration of vital energy on one reproductive element secures that one product in a higher degree of perfection. Thus better sperm and better ovules combine to produce better ova and a stronger embryo. This is in accordance with the effect of differentiation of functions and organs of all kinds. 2. Again, in all cross-fertilization different individual characteristics are inherited by the common offspring. ”

“ The exceptional forms are those in which the sperm of the male, making its way through the womb and Fallopian tubes, impregnates the ovum prior to its escape, and in which the now vitalized and growing ovum, by reason of its gradually increasing size, becomes imprisoned and fails to escape into the womb. ”

“ If no second treatment is given to such eggs they will disintegrate in a comparatively short time, but when sperm is added some or most of the eggs will develop in the way characteristic of fertilized eggs.75 When the membrane is too tough to allow the spermato­zoön to enter the egg it can be shown that if the membrane is torn mechanically the egg can still be fertilized by sperm. ”

“ The female may be impregnated or provided with a supply of sperm for future use by the male at any time, and the sperm, which is deposited in an external pouch or sperm receptacle, has remarkable vitality. Copulation occurs commonly in spring, and the eggs are fertilized outside the body. ”

“ The action of the cilia, under the stimulus of the sperm, seems to be from without, inward. Even if a minute particle of sperm, less than a drop, be left upon the margin of the external genitals of the female, it is sufficient in amount to impregnate, and can be carried, by help of these cilia, to the ovaries.
6. CONCEPTION.—After intercourse at the proper time the liability to conception is very great. If the organs are in a healthy condition, conception must necessarily follow, and no amount of prudence and the most rigid precautions often fail to prevent pregnancy. ”

“ Let all your crew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There’s hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that’s what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm’s the play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand.” ”

“ Fertility customarily is determined by sectioning testes and noting the presence or absence, and relative abundance, of sperm. This procedure necessarily sacrifices the individual and indicates the breeding condition at only one moment and for only the individuals sacrificed. My observations of males caught a number of times in live traps shed some light on the breeding condition of males, but the investigator is likely to err in extrapolating physiological data from morphology when he notes whether the testes are abdominal or scrotal and whether they are enlarged or small. ”

“ In the case of most animals the egg cannot develop unless the spermato­zoön enters. The ques­tion arises: How does the spermato­zoön activate the egg? And also how does it happen that the spermato­zoön enters the egg? We will first consider the latter ques­tion. These problems can be answered best from experi­ments on forms in which the egg and the sperm are fertilized in sea water. Many marine animals, from fishes down to lower forms, shed their eggs and sperm into the sea water where the fertiliza­tion of the egg takes place, outside the body of the female. ”

“ The sperm cells and egg cells are poured out into the water by the adults, and the sperm cell, which, like nearly all sperm cells, has a vibratory, taillike flagellum to propel it, reaches and fertilizes the egg cell. ”

“ It should be realised that all the proper, medical methods of controlling pregnancy consist, not in destroying an already growing embryo, but in preventing the male sperm from reaching the unfertilised egg cell. This may be done either by shutting the sperms away from the opening of the womb, or by securing the death of all (instead of the natural death of all but one) of the two to six hundred million sperms which enter the woman. ”

“ This view is supported not only by all the experi­ments but also by the observa­tion of the writer that foreign sperm or blood is able to cause a real agglutina­tion after some time if mixed with the sperm of a sea urchin or a starfish.68 We can imagine that the precipitate forms a film around the egg and acts as a block for the agglutina­tion between egg and spermato­zoön. The block can be removed mechanically by washing.
3. The fact has been mentioned that the most motile sperm will not be able to enter into the egg if certain other condi­tions (specificity or COH or CCa) are not fulfilled. ”

“ In other words, there must be selective fertilization, that is, a female ovum must be fertilized by a male sperm, and vice versa. The various assumptions made are not pure speculations, but rest upon many facts. ”

“ For the man mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished by the humour of the womb, and by the moistening blood, and by heat, and when forty nights have elapsed the sperm is formed.... God has constituted that heat and blood for the nourishment of the sperm until the foetus is brought forth. ”

“ Abnormalities in morphology may be classified into immature types, and deformities or imperfect development of the head and tail. Defective spermatogenesis occurs so frequently that it is not surprising to find spermatozoa in various stages of development cast into the excretory ducts. The various stages passed through in the development, from spermatogonia to adult sperm, are numerous, and it therefore is to be expected that we should see in abnormal semen many different immature forms. ”

“ Looking at Plate 2, you will see the man's sex machinery. The testicles are to a man what the ovaries are to a woman. They are two sacs held in a bag of rather thin loose skin called the scrotum, and it is here that the sperm (spermatozoa) or germ of life grows. Just how no one really knows. The spermatozoa are very tiny and the testicles hold many thousands of them. Under the microscope they show a sort of head and tail like a pollywog. They are very much alive and move by a rapid wiggling of the tail part. ”

“ On the other hand, living but immobile sperm cannot enter the egg under any condi­tions. If we add a trace of KCN to the sperm of Arbacia so that the spermato­zoön becomes immobile no egg is fertilized even if the eggs and the sperm are thoroughly shaken together ”

“ The Constituents of Semen—Function of the Prostate—The Properties of Semen—Aphrodisiacs—Alcohol, Opium, etc.—Anaphrodisiacs—The Stimulant Influence of Semen in Coitus—The Internal Effects of Testicular Secretions—The Influence of Ovarian Secretion.
The germ cell never comes into the sphere of consciousness and cannot therefore concern us in the psychological study of the phenomena of the sexual instinct. But it is otherwise with the sperm cell, and the seminal fluid has a relationship, both direct and indirect, to psychic phenomena which it is now necessary to discuss. ”

“ Seen under a microscope, a single drop of semen reveals a multitude of spermatozoa swimming about in the prostate-carrying medium. It is in this form that the vitalizing male element meets the female infertile ovum. This mass of live and moving germs is poured all around and about the region in which the ovum lies waiting to be fertilized, and every one of them seems to be "rushing about like mad" to find what it is sent to do, namely, to meet and fertilize the ovum. ”

“ Morgan78 found that the eggs of various females differ in their power of being fertilized by sperm of the same individual while one hundred per cent. could usually be fertilized with sperm of a different individual. ”

“ It may, however, well be that the capacity for wintering in the dry state has physiologically replaced the need for resistant fertilized eggs. Insemination takes place either by the introduction of the penis into the cloaca of the female, or by the puncture of the bodywall of the female by the penis, and the injection of the sperm into the body cavity, whence the single spermatozoa must make their way to the eggs. The females habitually produce eggs without impregnation, which again habitually develop into females, more rarely into males. ”

“ The spermatozoa are the male procreative cells, and are characterized by the possession of a head containing the chromosomes necessary for fertilization, and a tail capable of propelling the organism on its way to meet the ovum. ”

“ The spermatozoön, the principle of life contributed by the male, is so small that it is not visible to the eye except by the aid of a microscope, and, when seen, somewhat resembles a pollywog. These minute centres of life are alive, and move in a fluid which is secreted by the male organs of reproduction, and which is generally called semen. Now, if we study the characteristics of the ovum and of the spermatozoön we may be surprised when we discover some of the same differences which characterize men and women from infancy to old age. ”

“ I told you of the germ or ovum that is produced by the ovary of the woman. That ovum of itself could never become a new being. It must be united with a life-giving principle furnished by the man. This principle consists of a fluid in which float tiny little creatures called spermatozoa—one is a spermatozoon. Here is a picture of some. They are too small to be seen without the aid of a microscope. ”

“ On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that the ovum has some share in the effect, and if this is so, before any practical results are reached it will be necessary to discover which of two conceivable causes of sex-determination is the true one. It is possible that there are two kinds of ova, as well as two kinds of spermatozoa, and that there is a selective fertilization of such a kind that one kind of spermatozoon only fertilizes one kind of ovum, the second kind of spermatozoon the second kind of ovum. ”

“ all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; ”

“ It is incorrect to suppose, as has been held by some{121} theorists, that one testicle give rise to male spermatozoa and the other to female spermatozoa, for both male and female offspring have been produced from the same male parent after one testicle or the other has been removed. The same is true in cases in which either ovary has been removed from the mother; that is, male and female offspring are produced from mothers in whom either ovary has been removed. ”