We could possibly predict you to definitely ‘experience’ create fail the chaste friar as he wrote regarding person sex, but while the a beneficial priest the guy heard confessions, a vital supply of factual statements about intimate means
Departing on medical blogger Galen, Albert accompanied this new Aristotelian line on the reproduction, where in fact the men cum is the active principle in the generation, imprinting setting on raw amount available with the feminine menses. People, getting deficient for the important temperatures, make simply a kind of ‘seed’ otherwise vaginal hormonal you to lacks formative agency. Infamously, both Albert and you will Aquinas train you to definitely characteristics usually intends to build the ultimate offspring, specifically a masculine. For several grounds, and decreased heat, the process can be are unsuccessful and make the age group off a female. If you are individually a female matters as a keen imperfect child, she is nevertheless needed for the fresh maintenance of varieties. Hence, in the remarks for the Aristotle’s Physics, Albert comments you to ‘the material wishes setting while the do the feminine a man and you will new ugly the stunning.’ After that, all women its really wants to be one: ‘There’s no girl who not desire to postponed … femininity’ in the event that she you can expect to. Truly the only shaping energy ascribed towards mother is the unsafe strength of imagination: will be she happen to consider a beast inside the work of copulation, such as, she you will render beginning to 1.
Albert along with gives a rare membership regarding a gothic intersex individual, removed away from often individual observance otherwise head declaration
Almost every other ‘crashes out-of nature’ could cause the brand new birth of twins. Albert states have heard away from ‘of several really worth trust’ in the a set of conjoined twins which have strikingly different personalities. It survived into their twenties however,, when that died, their dual perished ‘on putrefaction and you may stench out-of his deceased brother’. The little one appeared as if people from the beginning, nevertheless the opening of your own vulva is actually signed more by the facial skin. So that the moms and dads asked a doctor to reduce they open – ‘and you may away leapt his testicles and his awesome penis’. Given that a grownup, Albert accounts, the person grabbed a girlfriend and you will fathered of several people. Their anecdotes will be less than credible. You to Clement off Bohemia told him throughout the an excellent ‘hoary dated monk’ who’d sex along with his mistress 66 minutes in one night. The following day, the latest monk dropped deceased and you can, with the autopsy, ‘their mind is actually seen to be completely evacuated’, leaving a swelling zero bigger than a beneficial pomegranate. The brand new facts try meant to strengthen the idea you to definitely, since the jizz is produced in your body and mind and you may descends towards genitals, excessive gender dries the mind. That it drying out plus explanations baldness; the latest evidence is the fact castrati will never be hairless.
Gothic medical professionals accepted five ‘complexions’ or temperaments – sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and you will melancholic – in accordance with the body 
is dominant humour. Problems, which cures, varied depending on the patient’s skin tone. On top of that, for each and every skin is actually affected by the six ‘non-naturals’, factors exterior towards the looks: diet plan, sleep, take action, intercourse, attitude and ecosystem. For Albert, the fresh influence of topography towards the people complexions was therefore powerful given that to manufacture additional both mental and physical items regarding eight ‘climates’ otherwise geographic areas of the earth. Because of the high value put on heat (the main reason getting male quality), we could possibly anticipate anybody residing in warm weather are reviewed because the stronger or higher practical, in order to some degree that is what we discover. Individuals off Asia, instance, ‘do just fine a whole lot more from inside the ingenuity because of the fresh new moving temperature and you may new keenness of its spirits’. That is why, Albert writes, one to Asia has produced too many recognized philosophers, mathematicians and you may magicians. Having said that, northern peoples such as for example Slavs, Germans and you will Englishmen try obviously phlegmatic and instead terrifically boring-witted, although ‘when they are transferred to data they persist offered plus they are much finest by far immediately after mental do so.’ Possibly Albert is planning on their own analogy. Furthermore, individuals do not have ‘natural’ facial skin colour, for pigment, also, was a response to environment. Indians, besides becoming brilliant, try ‘stunning inside the colour’, while Africans try black from the sun’s excess heat, and you may northerners light because of the cool – just like polar contains and you will white hares, although the exact same pets is actually black or brown inside southern weather. Albert does report specific stereotypes throughout the Black women, specifically that they focus gender more frequently than light female and develop far more healthy breast whole milk (this concept is inspired by Avicenna).