A quote from Thomas Cahill, Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World (Hinges of History)
p. 21-22 “The female body, on the other hand, was very deficient. In her mother’s womb, the female had received insufficient heat, so she was softer, more liquid, underdone. Periodic menstruation proved that she as not fiery enough to burn up her excess liquids, which would nonetheless come in time to supply the nurturing wetland for the hot male seed must be implanted within her. Were it not for this providential usefulness of her excess, we would have to conclude that she was simply a mutilated male, wrote Galen, the Greek physician of the second century whose pronouncements would exercise unparalleled influence over natural philosophy and medical practice well into modern times.”