"
The general belief still remained, however, that the woman's part
in conjugation is passive, and that it is entirely by the energy
of the male organ and of the male sexual elements, the
spermatozoa, that conjunction with the germ cell is attained.
According to this theory, it was believed that the spermatozoa
were, as Wilkinson expresses it, in a history of opinion on this
question, "endowed with some sort of intuition or instinct; that
they would turn in the direction of the os uteri, wading through
the acid mucus of the vagina; travel patiently upward and around
the vaginal portion of the uterus; enter the uterus and proceed
onward in search of the waiting ovum." (A.D. Wilkinson,
"Sterility in the Female," _Transactions of the Lincoln Medical
Society_, Nebraska, 1896.)
About the year 1859 Fichstedt seems to have done something to
overthrow this theory by declaring his belief that the uterus was
not, as commonly supposed, a passive organ in coitus, but was
capable of sucking in the semen during the brief period of
detumescence. Various authorities then began to bring forward
arguments and observations in the same sense.
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