Note 347 — THIRD SECTION. Relation of the Physician to Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.
Reading edition
Galen, De medic. sec. loc. bk. IX. ch. 8. (XIII. p. 317.). Paulus Aegineta bk. III. ch. 54. Both authors also make mention in this connection of sarcosis testium (swelling of the flesh of the testicles). Rambach, Thesaurus Eroticus, a work which now for the first time is within our reach to consult, quotes under ova pro coleis (ova,—eggs, put for testicles):
Vel tantus ad ora veniret Aut aliis causis ita computresceret ovum, Ne fieri posset quin crudelis medicina Ova recidisset, medici reprobabilis usus.
(In fact such foulness appeared, or from other causes the testicle was so rotten, that nought could be done but for cruel surgery to cut out the testicles,—the horrid habit of doctors), and assigns to it the name Ovidius Pseud. Is this perhaps a specimen of those old lines properly to be ascribed to some mediaeval monk?