Claudius F. Mayer: From Plato to Pope Paul / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 17. (Budapest, 1989)

nection with an animal, and the semen reaches the animal's womb, the seed will develop into a man in the animal's body. Then, he writes: "But neither must be we by any means forget the generation of homunculi. ... Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite with the highest putrefaction of the »venter equinus« for 40 days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easliy be seen. After this time, it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless transparent and without body. If now, after this it will be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept forty weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venter equinus, it becomes thenceforth a true and living infant, having all the members of a child born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus..."—The physician BŅ TOPHAIL (f

1585) also mentions the birth of a "homunculus" in a science fiction he wrote; it developed in the ground through a chemical process, and it was fed by a gazelle. 365 Cf. IDEAL Commonwealths (1901): New Atlantis, p. 103: "By art likewise we make them (the beasts and birds) greater or taller than their kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them and stay their growth; we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is, and contrariwise barren and no generative." "We even produce new kinds by commixtures and not barren, as people think they must be." 366 Karl Joseph BUKISCH travelled in Austria, Germany, and France. He pretended that he can diagnose the embryo's sex from the pregnant's urine. All regular practitioners considered him a quack. Cf. MAGYARY-KOSSA, 1. c., 67. 367 It was Sir Richard STEELE (1672-1729) who suggested this in the Tät¡er (1709, vol. 2. No. 175); q by H. ELLIS Social Hygiene. Cf. also ROPER, 1. c. 368 WOLFE, A. B. (1933): Human Biology, 5: 35. 369 PEARL, R. (1925): The Biology of Population Growth. N. Y. "Wars bring up these problems because war itself is partly the result of population pressure; it disorganizes, and intensifies production, which results in a postwar unemployment. People begin to think that they are too many." (2-3.). 370 STANGELAND, 1. c. footnote 80. 371 Best orientation in this special literature is found in the works of SPENGLER (1. c. footnote 233.) and STANGELAND (I.e. footnote 80.). 372 PETERSEN, W. (1961): Population

, N. Y.—Already in 1672, RICCIOLI estimated the world population at 1000 million souls. At the start of the xix. ct. an estimate put the world figure at 900-1000 million souls, while MALTE-BRUN, French geographer, considered the correct figure 670 million souls in 1816 (q. by MATIEGKA, J. (1927): Anthropologie

, Praha, 5: 271. See also ÐURANÐ, J. D. (1967): Am. Acad. Politic Sc., 369: p. 1. 373 England and Wales had 6 1/2 mill, souls in 1750, 12 mill, in 1821. 374 BABEUF. F. N. G. (1760-1797): Du systéme de depopulation

. ou la vie et les crimes de Carrier, Par.. 1795; describes how J. B. CARRIER wanted to exterminate the general population in La Vendee. 375 Cf. MOSER. J. (1720-1794): Patriotische Phantasien. Berl., 1804. 376 As PEARL stated (1. c., footnote 369, 169.): "Nearly every group of persons that I can think of which does show high fertility seems to be quite generally regarded by eugenists as socially and biologically undesirable." This is a question where no rational discussion seems to be possible (BOŲŁÐING). 377-378 The thought that an excessive population is a surcharge upon the state, and it results in complete indigence and inadequate subsistence. The Comité de Meñđiç¡ e (1790-1791) stated that there will be always needy citizens and unemployables who had only a minimum right to food and shelter. It condemned vigorously the then existing English poor laws and relief system which tended to increase the number of the poor, to foster indolence, etc.

—It was felt that the tendency of man to multiply could destroy all the fruits of progress. Cf. M. J. A. N. C. CONDORCET (1743-1794): Outlines of a Historical View

, etc. (EP, 1795; tr. Bait., 1802.): . .Men will then know that the duties they may be under relative to propagation will consist not in the question of giving existence to a greater number of beings, but happiness.

.. not the puerile idea of encumbering the earth with useless and wretched mortals." (228.)—The French national economists who were afraid of overpopulation, because it causes poverty, were refuted by others. See e. g„ C. JUGLAR in 1840. Cf. BERTILLON, J. (1851-1919): La dépopulation de la France, 69