It was not realised that sperm were concerned in the process of fertilisation until the nineteenth century. Various names are associated with the discovery - Prevost and Dumas (1824), Peltier (1835), and Dujardin (1837) .

The first sperm-bank child was born in the U.S. in 1953 - and, in the words of Gerald Leach, was "perfectly normal". Since then the numbers have swelled, with the sperm storage period being gradually lengthened. It seems that little ecological or eugenic thought has gone into this subject.

Most of us know that semen has the remarkable ability to help start babies. But this is only one of the powers attributed to the mysterious substance.

One idea is that semen has a "magnetic" effect those who retain their semen i.e. refrain from sexual activity, are able to draw both men and women to themselves. It has often been assumed that semen has mystical or religious powers. Thus a subsect of the Gnostics mixed the fluid with the sacramental draught in their religious ceremonies. And in the so-called Black Mass, semen has served as holy water.

Human sperm were first discovered by a student of Antonij van Leeuwenhoek in 1677 in the city of Delft. The name of the student is not known for certain: he is variously written up as Ludwig Hamm, van Hamm or von Hammen. According to some writers he is a Dutchman, to others a German. One day he brought to the acknowledged master of microscopy, Leeuwenhoek, a bottle containing semen and pointed out that small animals could be seen moving about in the ejaculate.

The idea of an effective sperm bank has appealed to eugenically-minded individuals for a good few centuries.

Such arrangements have only recently become practically feasible. The first two sperm banks, set up in Iowa City and Tokyo, both began life in 1964.

Most women don't mind semen too much, though some unduly fastidious ones complain about its smell or stickiness. Some females, however, have a quite extraordinary reaction to seminal fluid: they are happily rare. In one case reported in 1967 a girl had an acute allergic reaction to human sperm. She came from a family with a long history of various kinds of allergy, including eczema, asthma, and dermatitis. A short time after her first sexual experience she developed a rash and asthma; her lips, eyelids, tongue, and throat became swollen, she had

Sperm come in a wide variety of shapes but in general tend to be elongated, to resemble simple filaments. The sperm of crayfish are star-shaped, while some have undulating membranes, explosive capsules, etc. It has been said that sperm never exceed 50 microns (1 micron=1 thousandth of a millimetre) in diameter, but there are a number of species in which the sperm attain remarkable lengths. In amphibia of the family Discoglossidae sperm can sometimes be as much as 2.mm in length, and in the aquatic Notonecta the staggering length of 12 mm. is

See:

• Largest human penis
• Largest penis in animal kingdom

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The Illustrated Book of Sexual Records is a compilation of well over 400 sexual superlatives from all around the world.

Discover the biggest, longest, sexiest, tallest, smallest, shortest, highest, lowest, fastest, slowest, rarest, oldest, youngest, happiest, first, last, maximum, minimum, largest, oddest... and most unusual sex record known.

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Home Page

The Illustrated Book of Sexual Records is a compilation of well over 400 sexual superlatives from all around the world.

Discover the biggest, longest, sexiest, tallest, smallest, shortest, highest, lowest, fastest, slowest, rarest, oldest, youngest, happiest, first, last, maximum, minimum, largest, oddest... and most unusual sex record known.

Choose from one of the many categories below (or use the menu left), or try searching top-right, for nearly any keyword.