Note 329 — THIRD SECTION. Relation of the Physician to Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Celsus, De re medica bk. VI. ch. 18., Solet etiam interdum ad nervos ulcus descendere; profluitque pituita multa sanies tenuis malique odoris, non coacta at aquae similis, in qua caro recens lota est; doloresque is locus et punctiones habet. Id genus quamvis inter purulenta est, tamen lenibus medicamentis curandum est.... Praecipueque id ulcus multa calida aqua fovendum est, velandumque neque frigori committendum. (Moreover the ulcer is wont sometimes to descend to the cords; and then there is discharged a quantity of phlegm, a thin sanies of an ill odour, not congealed but like water in which a piece of fresh meat has been washed; and the place experiences pain and a pricking sensation. This sort, though it comes under the head of purulent complaints, should nevertheless be treated with mild drugs.... And above all this form of ulcer should be fomented with copious warm water, and should be covered and not exposed to cold). From the last sentence it may be concluded that it is not the acute form of blennorrhœa of the urethra that is in question here (bk. IV), but the chronic. The words ad nervos (to the cords) have given occasion to some very extraordinary explanations. Simon, Krit. Gesch. Vol. I p. 23., considers it would be most natural to refer this to the inside of the member, to the urethra in fact, though as a matter of fact gonorrhœa of the glans penis might just as likely be intended in the passage. But in the latter case the interpretation is absolutely impossible, as the glans penis is never called nervus. The corpora cavernosa it is true are described in several places by Galen, e.g. De loc. aff. bk. VI. ch. 6., as “a pipe-like cord, for the body is cord-like in form, the whole being hollow like a pipe”, but he adds χωρὶς τῆς καλουμένης βαλάνου (always excepting the glans penis, as it is called), and indeed that nervus generally signifies the penis is evident at once from Horace, Epod. XII. 19.; even the plural nervos is found in Petronius, Sat. 129., 134.,—so the Greeks similarly use νεῦρον (nerve, cord) for the penis, sometimes with the addition σπερματικὸν (spermatic, seminal), as Eustathius points out,—Comm. on the Iliad, X. 1390. However Celsus had no idea of this in his mind; everything shows that with him the ad nervos points to nothing but the vasa deferentia or spermatic cords, as he distinctly declares himself in bk. VII. ch. 18: Dependent vero (testiculi) ab inguinibus per singulos nervos, quos κρεμαστῆρας Graeci nominant. (But the testicles hang from the groin by separate cords, which the Greeks call κρεμαστῆρες,—suspenders). Similarly Columella, De re rustic. bk. VI. ch. 26., Testium nervos, quos Graeci κρεμαστῆρας ab eo appellant, quod ex illis genitales partes dependent. (The cords of the testicles, which the Greeks name κρεμαστῆρες,—suspenders, because the genital parts hang by them); again Pollux, Onomast. bk. II. Ch. 4., κρεμαστῆρας δὲ λέγονται τὰ νεῦρα, τοῦς διδύμους ἀνέχει. (κρεμαστῆρες,—suspenders, is the name of the cords; and they support the testicles). The possibility of the suppuration extending to the seed reservoir and the spermatic cords is proved by the case lately observed and made known by Ricord.