Note 273 — THIRD SECTION. Relation of the Physician to Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Aristophanes, Wasps 578., παίδων τοίνυν δοκιμαζομένων αἰδοῖα πάρεστι θεᾶσθαι. (Yet when boys are under test, men may see their privates). Comp. Athenaeus, Deipnos. bk. XII. p. 550. Petit, Ad legg. Attic. p. 227. At Rome likewise in cases of marriage disputes the men were obliged to offer their genital organs for examination (Quintilian, Declam. 279.), a Law which was only revoked by Justinian. Comp. Gundlingiana No. 23. pp. 342 sqq. We learn from Plato, Theaetet. 151., ποίαν χρῆ ποίῳ ἀνδρὶ συνοῦσαν ὡς ἀρίστους παῖδας τίκτειν, (what sort of maid must mate with what sort of man to produce as fine children as may be), that the marriageable girls were examined by the midwives,—a procedure that Plato wished to see universally introduced in his ideal State (De legg. bk. XII.). But against this Theodoretus, Contra Graecos bk. IX., declaims vigorously.