Ahem - subject upon which I can bore for England, the abbreviated version.
a) Possibly, depending on date, a War Wound of an intimate nature. Also having had mumps or some other diseases affecting the male organs of reproduction. (I incline to the mumps explanation, myself.)
b) For longer than one would think possible, well after it was known that it was possible to test sperm to see if the little swimmers were there and actually capable of doing their stuff, docs were either ignorant of this basic fact, or sexistly reluctant to do this v simple operation before subjecting the women in the picture to a load of intrusive investigations. So shooting blanks was technically known of but very concealed.
c) docs for far longer than one would think possible did conflate potency/fertility in men.
But this all may fall under the heading of Weird Literary Medical (especially in the reproductive area) Tropes - like e.g. woman who has 1 miscarriage and Can Never Bear Another Child - and of course all those plot relevant Literary Diseases. (I was once sent an article to referee in which somebody was trying to align diseases caused by particular behaviours in Victorian novels with recognised disease entities of the day - larf I fair lay on the ground.)
no subject
a) Possibly, depending on date, a War Wound of an intimate nature. Also having had mumps or some other diseases affecting the male organs of reproduction. (I incline to the mumps explanation, myself.)
b) For longer than one would think possible, well after it was known that it was possible to test sperm to see if the little swimmers were there and actually capable of doing their stuff, docs were either ignorant of this basic fact, or sexistly reluctant to do this v simple operation before subjecting the women in the picture to a load of intrusive investigations. So shooting blanks was technically known of but very concealed.
c) docs for far longer than one would think possible did conflate potency/fertility in men.
But this all may fall under the heading of Weird Literary Medical (especially in the reproductive area) Tropes - like e.g. woman who has 1 miscarriage and Can Never Bear Another Child - and of course all those plot relevant Literary Diseases. (I was once sent an article to referee in which somebody was trying to align diseases caused by particular behaviours in Victorian novels with recognised disease entities of the day - larf I fair lay on the ground.)