The historic instance of
Queen Mary of England, whose anxiety and efforts to bear a child
were the subject of public comment and prayers, is but an example
of a fact that is occurring every day, and doubtless some of
these cases could be righted by the pursuance of some of the
methods suggested.
There have been rumors from the beginning of the century of women
being impregnated in a bath, from contact with cloths containing
semen, etc., and some authorities in medical jurisprudence have
accepted the possibility of such an occurrence. It is not in the
province of this work to speculate on what may be, but to give
authoritative facts, from which the reader may draw his own
deductions. Fertilization of plants has been thought to have been
known in the oldest times, and there are some who believe that
the library at Alexandria must have contained some information
relative to it. The first authentic account that we have of
artificial impregnation is that of Schwammerdam, who in 1680
attempted it without success by the fecundation of the eggs of
fish. Roesel, his scholar, made an attempt in 1690, but also
failed; and to Jacobi, in 1700, belongs the honor of success. In
1780, Abbe Spallanzani, following up the success of Jacobi,
artificially impregnated a bitch, who brought forth in sixty-two
days 3 puppies, all resembling the male.
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