Are Old Men Impotent? On a Sparse Discourse of Early Modern Medicine and Its Forensic Implications in Paolo Zacchia’s Quaestiones medico-legales

Abstract

In early modern medical literature, there are increasing references to sterility and impotence in older men. This is especially true of the Quaestiones medico-legales by the Roman physician Paolo Zacchia (1584–1659). In several books of this systematically structured manual, its author discusses medical and legal arguments on the one hand. On the other hand, in the 10th, only posthumously published volume, a total of five cases of impotence in old men are described on the basis of court decisions of the Rota Romana and expert opinions of the author. The paper examines these cases with regard to central statements on male impotence in old age, which are placed in the medical as well as the social and legal-historical context of the time. It becomes clear that old-age impotence and sterility were less a medical than a legal problem in the 17th century. However, the physician Zacchia emphasises the concept of biological age instead of historically transmitted numerical age limits. In this respect, his expert opinions already show the first signs of medical empiricism.