So, yeah. My copy of Ron Barkai’s A History of Jewish Gynaecological Texts in the Middle Ages arrived today, and among other things it had this gem from Galen:

This sickness occurs to women because of an abundance of sperm. When this sperm becomes corrupted, its nature is transformed into a poison. It happens to them when they stop having sexual relations, especially widows, who were used to coitus. It happens to virgins when they reach maturity if they do not enjoy sexual relations with a male, as nature demands. [Virginibus etiam solet euenire cum ad annos nubiles peruenerunt et uiris uti non possunt] Therefore, they have an abundance of sperm, called esperma, that nature desire to expel but cannot. From that abundance of sperm smoke [frigida fumositas] is created, which ascends to the organs called collaterals and causes suffocation to the wings of the lung, to the heart and to other instruments of the voice, until the suffocation reaches the tongue and affects the speech. Usually, the origin of this ailment is the want of flowers [ed. note: influenced by Latin terminology, some of the Hebrew medical texts employed the word ‘flowers’ for ‘menstruation’]; if the sperm is abundant, the ailment becomes more serious, and even more so if it afflicts the superior organs, which are the speech instruments.