Biochemistry of Spermatozoa: Chemical and Functional Correlations in Ejaculated Semen, Andrological Aspect

Abstract

Some of the fascination which Bonnet so marvellously expressed in his letter to Spallanzani, we surely share to this day; to a great extent it arises from the fact that spermatozoa, unlike other body cells, are endowed with two clearly discernible biological properties (of which at last we begin to know rather more than our illustrious predecessors), namely the capacity to move fast and to fertilize, a remarkable combination of attributes, each inherent in a different constituent structure of the sperm cell.

“They are, of all animalculi of liquids, those which have most excited my curiosity: the element in which they live, the place of their abode, their figure, motion, their secret properties; all, in a word, should interest us in so singular a kind of minute animate beings.

“Why do they appear only at the age of puberty; where did they exist before this period? Do they serve no purpose but to people the fluid where they are so largely scattered? How far are we from being able to answer any of these questions? and how probable it is, that future age will be as ignorant of the whole, as our own!” Charles Bonnet 1771