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Title: Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of
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Author: John Davenport

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APHRODISIACS
AND ANTI-APHRODISIACS: THREE ESSAYS ON THE POWERS OF
REPRODUCTION ***

Transcriber's note:

Old spellings and syntax in the French and English texts
have not been corrected except the typos. The letter "m"
with a macron have been replaced by "mm" as there is no
unicode symbol or symbol combination to display this
character satisfactorily. Footnote 224 is reference twice.

THREE ESSAYS ON THE POWERS
OF REPRODUCTION.

Frontispiece

VOTIVE COLUMNS
Of the Ancient Oscans.

Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs:
THREE ESSAYS ON THE POWERS OF

REPRODUCTION;

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE JUDICIAL "CONGRESS"

AS PRACTISED IN FRANCE DURING THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

By JOHN DAVENPORT.

Ubi stimulus, ibi fluxus.—Hippocrates.

LONDON:
PRIVATELY PRINTED.
1869.

PREFACE.

HE reproductive powers of Nature were regarded by the nations of
remote antiquity with an awe and reverence so great, as to form an

object of worship, under a symbol, of all others the most significant,—the
Phallus; and thus was founded a religion, of which the traces exist to this
day, not in Asia only, but even in Europe itself.
That scarcely any notices of this worship should appear in modern works,
except in the erudite pages of a few antiquarians may be accounted for by
considering the difference of opinion between the ancients and the moderns
as to what constitutes—modesty; the former being unable to see any moral
turpitude in actions they regarded was the designs of nature, while the latter,
by their over-strained notions of delicacy, render themselves, in some
degree at least, obnoxious to the charge that, in proportion as manners
becomes corrupt, language becomes more guarded,—modesty, when
banished from the heart, taking refuge on the lips.
To supply, to some extent, this lacuna in our popular literature has been the
object of the present work, in which, it is hoped, may be found much
curious and interesting physiological information, interspersed with
recherché and festivous anecdotes.
The text is illustrated by a few plates, drawn from antiquarian sources.
J. D.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Note.—As it was found impossible always to insert the illustrations
opposite the explanatory text, the following List will assist the reader to
those pages which explain the objects represented:—
Plate Described on page
Frontispiece, Inscribed Votive Columns Facing title
Of small size and of great antiquity; in use amongst the
Oscan people, who were finally subjugated by the
Sabines.
I. Figure 1, Egyptian Phallus 1, 2, 3
From "Recueil d'Antiquités Egyptiennes, &c., par le
Comte de Caylus."

" 2, do., different view 1, 2, 3
" 3, Two views of a double figure 1, 2, 3
" 4, Roman Priapus over a baker's door at Pompeii 11
From "Musée secret de Naples."
II. Figure 1, Lingham 1, 2, 3
From M. Sonnerat's "Voyage aux Indes Orientales." 1, 2, 3
" 2, Pan's Head 9, 10
III. Figure 1, Leaden Phallus 5
From the "Forgeais Collection of Plombs Historiques." 5
" 2, ditto, a different view 5
" 3, ditto, ditto 5
" 4, ditto, ditto 5
IV. Figure 1, Round Tower 5, 6, 7
From O'Brien's "History of the Round Towers of
Ireland." 5, 6, 7
" 2, Three-headed Osiris 7, 8, 9
From the Comte de Caylus' "Recueil d'Antiquités
Egyptiennes," &c. 7, 8, 9
V. Figure 1, Cross 12, 13, 14
From Higgin's "Anacalypsis." 12, 13, 14
" 2, Another example 12, 13, 14
From the same work. 12, 13, 14
" 3, Another example 12, 13, 14
From the same work. 12, 13, 14
" 4, Another example 12, 13, 14
From the same work. 12, 13, 14
VI. Figure 1, Ex Voto 18, 19, 20
From the British Museum copy of R. Payne Knight's
"History of the Worship of Priapus." 18, 19, 20
" 2, Dudaïm or Mandrake 67, 70, 71, 74
From Dr. Kitto's "Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature." 67, 70, 71, 74
VII. Figure 1, Fibula 142, 3
From Holyday's "Juvenal." 142, 3
" 2, Another example of a different construction 142, 3

CONTENTS.

ESSAY I.
Page
NCIENT Phallic Worship:
Phallic Worship the most ancient
1-2
and general
2
Phallic Worship found to exist in America
3
Indian Trimourti or Trinity
Lingham 3
Yoni or Cteis, and Pulleiar 4
Taly, Anectode of the 4
Leaden Phalli found in the river Rhône 5
Round Towers in Ireland—Phallic temples 6
The May-Pole a relic of phallic worship 6
Phallus held in reverence by the Jews—
6
King David
Le prerogativi de' Testicoli (note) 6
An Egyptian Phallic Oath 8
Ancient Welsh Phallic Law 8
London Costermongers' Oath "By my
9
taters"
Bembo (Cardinal), his saying (note) 10
Priapus, derivation of the word 10
Priapus, how reverenced by Roman
10
women
Priapus, decline of his worship 11
The Cross ( ) known to the Buddhists
12
and the Lama of Thibet
Cross (the) regarded by the Ancients as
12
the emblem of fruitfulness
Rev. Mr. Maurice quoted 12
x The Tau, Crux-Ansata, or triple Phallus 14
Remains of Phallic Worship in Europe 14
Lampsacus, the Birth-place of the deity
14
Priapus (note)
Saint Foutin 14
The Phallus of Foutin at Embrun—the
16
holy vinegar
Curious Phallic Customs 16-17
Godfrey de Bouillon and the Holy prepuce 18
Il santo-membro 18
Sir W. Hamilton's account of the Worship
18
paid to Saints Cosmo and Damianus
Ex votos 18

ESSAY II.

Anaphrodisia, or Absence of the
Productive Power:
Impotency, three kinds of, according to the
21
Canon Law
Impotency, Causes of, proper to Men 21
Impotency, Causes of, proper to Women 21
Sterility and its Causes 21
Morgagni quoted 21
Clitoris, its length sometimes prevents the
sexual union—case quoted by Sir 24-25
Everard Home
Columbus, Martial, Haller, Juvenal, and
25-26
Ariosto quoted
Impotency, Moral Causes of 28-29
Montaigne's Advice 32
Impotency caused by too great warmth of
33
Clothing—Hunter's Opinion
Point-Tying—Voltaire's Pucelle d'Orléans
35
quoted
Point-Tying known to the Ancients—
37-38
instances quoted
Point-Tying among the Moderns
40
recognised by James I.
Counter-Charm to Point-Tying 41
Agreeable Mode of curing such
42
Enchantment
Case of Point-Tying related by Venette 43
Montaigne's curious Story 44
Judicial Congress in Cases of alleged
47
Impotency
xiManner of conducting the Congress 48
Judicial Congress originated with the
52
Church
Judicial Congress practised in France
during the 16th and 17th Centuries— 52
Forbidden in 1677
Boileau quoted 55-56
Cases determined by the Judicial Congress 54-58
Willick, Dr., his Remarks and Advice
58-63
upon the Sexual Intercourse

ESSAY III.

Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs:
The Mandrake or Dudaïm the most
66
ancient aphrodisiac
Rachel and Leah 66
Solomon's Song 67
Pliny the Elder quoted 68
Sappho's love for Phaon accounted for 68
Superstitious ideas respecting the
69
mandrake during the Middle Ages
The Knights Templars accused of adoring
69
it
Mandrake, Weir's description of it 70
Mandrake under the name of Mandragora
70
used as a charm
Macchiavelli's Comedy of La Mandragora
71
and Voltaire's account of it
Love potions, Venetian law against them 72
Richard III. accuses Lady Grey of
72
witchcraft
Maundrell's account of the Dudaïm 73
Singular Aphrodisiac used by the
75
Amazons
Philters, or love potions used by the
75
ancients
Hippomanes, wonderful powers of, as an
79
aphrodisiac
Recipes for love-potions 80
Fish an aphrodisiac—Hecquet's anecdote 86
Mollusca, truffles and mushrooms used as
88
aphrodisiacal
George IV.'s appreciation of truffles (note) 88
Effect of truffles described by a lady 89
xiiLatin epigram on the vices of the
90
monks
Naïveté of a monk on the score of adultery 91
Curious Quatrain in the Church of St.
91
Hyacinth
Madame Du Barri's secret 93
Do., Do., description of (note) 93
Tablettes de Magnanimité—Poudre de joie
94
—Seraglio Pastilles
Musk, Cantharides—effects of the latter 96
Cardinal Dubois' Account of a Love-
98
Potion
Caricature upon Dubois (note) 98
Indian Bang 104

Stimulating Powers of Odours 106
Cabanis quoted 107
D'Obsonville quoted 108
Portable Gold—Shakespeare quoted 109-
110
Bouchard's Account of Aphrodisiacal
111
Charms
Flagellation—Graham's Celestial Bed— 121-
Lady Hamilton—Lord Nelson, &c. 126
Burton quoted 126

Anti-Aphrodisiacs:
Refrigerants—Recommendation of Plato 128-
and Aristotle 129
Sir Thos. Brown quoted 130
Origen 130
Camphor an anti-aphrodisiac 134
Coffee an anti-aphrodisiac—Abernethey's
137
saying (note)
Infibulation, Holyday quoted 141-
144
Bernasco Padlocks 144
Voltaire's poem of the Cadenas 146
Rabelais' anti-aphrodisiacal remedies 147-
154

Plate I.

EGYPTIAN PHALLI.
and
Pompeian House—sign.

ESSAY I.

REMARKS UPON THE SYMBOLS OF THE
REPRODUCTIVE POWERS.

ROM the investigations and researches of the learned, there
appears to be no doubt but that the most ancient of all superstitions
was that in which Nature was contemplated chiefly under the
attribute or property of fecundity; the symbols of the reproductive power
being those under which its prolific potencies were exhibited. It is not
because modern fastidiousness affects to consider those symbols as
indecent, and even obscene, that we should therefore suppose them to have
been so regarded by the ancients: on the contrary, the view of them
awakened no impure ideas in the minds of the latter, being regarded by
them as the most sacred objects of worship. The ancients, indeed, did not
look upon the pleasures of love with the same eye as the moderns do; the
tender union of the sexes excited their veneration, because religion
appeared to consecrate it, inasmuch as their mythology presented to them
all Olympus as more occupied with amatory delights than with the
government of the universe.
The reflecting men of those times, more simple, but, it must be confessed,
more profound, than those of our own day, could not see any moral
turpitude in actions regarded by them as the design of nature, and as the
acme of felicity. For this reason it is that we find not only ancient writers
expressing themselves freely upon subjects regarded by us as indecent, but
even sculptors and painters equally unrestrained in this particular.
The statesman took advantage of these religious impressions: whatever
tended to increase population being held in honour. Those images and
Priapi so frequently found in the temples of the ancients, and even in their
houses, and which we consider as objects of indecent lewdness, were, in
their eyes, but so many sacred motives exciting them to propagate their
species.

In order to represent by a physical object the reproductive power of the sun
in spring-time, as well as the action of that power on all sentient beings, the
ancients adopted that symbol of the male gender which the Greeks, who
derive it from the Egyptians, called—Phallus.1 This worship was so general
as to have spread itself over a large portion of the habitable globe, for it
flourished for many ages in Egypt and Syria, Persia, Asia Minor, Greece
and Italy: it was, and still is, in vigour in India and many parts of Africa,
and was even found in America on its discovery by the Spaniards. Thus
Garcilaso de la Vega informs us2 that, in the public squares of Panuco (a
Mexican town), bas-reliefs were found which, like those of India,
represented, in various ways the sexual union; while at Tlascala, another
town of that country, the reproductive act was worshipped under the joint
symbol of the generative organs, male and female.
A more surprising fact is, that this worship has, as will be shewn hereafter,
been perpetuated to a very late date, among the Christians of Europe.
In its origin, the Phallus or emblem of the generative and procreative
powers of nature appears to have been of a very simple and inoffensive
character—although it was afterwards made subservient to the grossest and
most superstitious purposes.
In India this worship is everywhere to be found accompanying the triune
God, called by the Hindoos, Trimourti or Trinity, and the significant form of
the single obelisk or pillar called the Linga or Lingham;3 and it should be
observed, in justice to the Hindoos that it is some comparative and negative
praise to them, that this emblem, under which they express the elements and
operations of nature is not externally indecorous. Unlike the abominable
realities of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, we see this Indian phallic emblem in
the Hindoo religious exhibitions, without offence, nor know, until
information be extorted, that we are contemplating a symbol whose
prototype is obscene.4
Plate II.

Besides the Lingham, the equally significant Yoni or Cteis is to be seen,
being the female organ of generation. It is sometimes single, often in
conjunction, for the Indians, believing that the emblem of fecundity might
be rendered more energetic by combining the organs of both sexes, did so
unite them, giving to this double symbol the name of Pulleiar, confounded
by some writers with the Lingham itself. This pulleiar is highly venerated
by the sectarian worshippers of Siva (the third god of the Trimourti), who
hang it round their neck, as a charm or amulet, or enclosing it in a small
box, fasten it upon their arm. The Indians have also a little jewel called taly,
worn, in like manner, by females round their necks as a charm. It is
presented to them on their wedding day by their husbands, who receive it
from the hands of the Brahmins. Upon these jewels is engraved the
representation, either of the Lingham or of the Pulleiar. The following
anecdote connected with this custom is given by M. Sonnerat.5
"A Capuchin missionary had a serious dispute with the Jesuits residing at
Pondicherry, which was referred for decision to the judicial courts. The

disciples of Loyola, who can be toleration itself when toleration furthers
their crafty and ambitious views, had declined all interference with the
above custom. M. Tournon, the Pope's legate apostolic, who regarded the
matter as one not to be trifled with, and with whom, moreover, the Jesuits
were no favourites, strictly prohibited the taly, enjoining all female converts
to substitute in its place either a cross or a medal of the Virgin. The Indian
women, strongly attached to their ancient customs, refused obedience. The
missionaries, apprehensive of losing the fruits of their zealous labours, and
seeing the number of their neophytes daily diminishing, entered into a
compromise by adopting a mezzo-termine with the females in question, and
it was agreed that a Cross should be engraved upon the taly, an arrangement
by which the symbol of Christian salvation was coupled with that of the
male and female pudenda."
The deep and enthusiastic veneration felt by the Hindoos for this worship is
naturally explained by their intense anxiety and desire for having children
who might perform those ceremonies to their manes which they firmly and
piously believe will have the effect of mitigating their punishment in the
world to come. They worship the Lingham, therefore, for the sake of having
progeny, and husbands, whose wives are barren, send them to adore that
symbol, and, if report be true, the ladies take especial care not to disappoint
the wish of their dear spouses.
It is probable that the introduction of this worship is due to the Indians who
founded the sect of Siva, imagining, as they no doubt did, that the most
effectual means of propagating it would be by presenting their deity under
the form of that organ by which the reproduction of the human race is
effected.
Nothing can be a greater proof of the high antiquity of the Indians than this
worship, it being certain that the Egyptians did not establish it, as well as
the dogma of the Metempsychosis, among themselves, until after they had
travelled in India.
Phalli, usually in lead, have been even found in the river Rhône. These were
most likely the signs and tokens belonging to some secret society probably
of a licentious character. Similar ones are in the Forgeais collection, and
were engraved in the Plombs Historiés of that antiquarian.6

Plate III.

PHALLIC EMBLEM.
Found in the Rhone.
From the Forgeais Collection.

According to an ingenious writer,7 who is of opinion that the Indians sent,
at a very remote period, colonists to Ireland, the round towers, so numerous
in that island, are no other than ancient Phallic temples erected in honour of
the fructifying power of nature emanating, as it was supposed to do, from
the sun, under the name of Sol, Phœbus, Apollo, Abad, or Budh.8

Alluding to these towers, Mr O'Brien observes, "the eastern votaries, suiting
the action to the idea, and that their vivid imaginations might be still more
enlivened by the very form of the temple, actually constructed its
architecture after the model of the membrum virile, which, obscenity apart,
is the divinity-formed and indispensable medium selected by God himself
for human propagation and sexual prolificacy." There is every reason to
believe that our May-pole is a relic of the ancient Phallic worship.
Plate IV.

THREE HEADED OSIRIS
ROUND TOWER AT KLONDALKIN,
IRELAND.

The manners of the ancient Hebrews seem to have differed little, if at all, in
this respect, from those of the nations surrounding them: thus, David,
dancing with all his might before the ark, lifted up his ephod and exhibited

his nakedness to "the eyes of the handmaids of his servants." No blame is
attached to the king for such gross indecency during a public and religious
ceremony; while Michal, his wife, was punished with barrenness, for
expressing her disapprobation of his conduct.9
This example attests the great respect entertained by the Hebrews for the
organs of generation;10 but we have a further proof of this reverence for
them in the fact that, when taking a solemn oath, they placed their hand
upon them in token of its inviolability: When Abraham, addressing "his
oldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had," is made to say,
"Put I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and I will make thee swear, by
the Lord, the God of Heaven, and the God of the earth that thou shalt not
take a wife unto my son, of the daughters of the Canaanites:"11 and when
Jacob, at the point of death, "called his son Joseph, and said unto him, "If
now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my
thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee, in
Egypt,"12 the Hebrew text has been incorrectly translated in both these
instances; for, according to learned commentators, it is not the thigh, but the
phallus that is meant; such tact having, in the opinion of the Rabbins, been
introduced for the purpose of doing honour to circumcision.
This custom obtains in Egypt, even in our own day, for many travellers
assert that the Arabs, when desirous of saluting or making a promise with
great solemnity, place their hand upon the part in question. A case in point
is related in a letter of the Adjutant-General Julian to a member of the
Institute of Egypt.13 An Egyptian, who had been arrested as a spy, and
brought before the general, finding that all his asservations of innocence
could not be understood "leva sa chemise bleue, et prenant son phallus à la
poignée, resta un moment dans l'attitude théatrale d'un dieu jurant par le
Styx. Sa physionomie semblait me dire: Après la serment terrible que je
fais pour vous prouver mon innocence, osez-vous en douter? Son geste me
rappela que du tems d'Abraham on jurait vérité en portant la main aux
organes de la génération." The vast antiquity of this custom among the
ancient Egyptians is proved by figure 2, Plate IV. This figure, which is
copied from Caylus, Vol. VI., Plate I., figure 4, represents Osiris grasping
his phallus while taking an oath.

A custom greatly resembling this manner of swearing existed also in the
north of Europe, as is proved by an ancient law still extant: thus, one of the
articles of the Welsh laws enacted by Hoel the Good, provides that, in cases
of rape, if the woman wishes to prosecute the offender, she must, when
swearing to the identity of the criminal, lay her right hand upon the relics of
the saints and grasp with her left one, the peccant member of the party
accused.14
It may be mentioned, en passant, that the low Irish in Dublin, and the
London costermongers, often make use of an expression which, whether
connected or not with the custom above noted, offers for our consideration
a curious coincidence at least. If extra force is to accompany an assertion, it
is very common for the vulgar to say in conclusion: "S'elp my taters!" or
"So help me testes"—equal to saying, "I swear by my member." That the
word "taters" is a corruption of, and vulgarism for, "testes" we see very
readily in the expression "strain my taters"—i.e., to pass urine or make
water.
The Greeks had consecrated the same symbols of universal fecundity in
their mysteries, the phallus and the cteis being publicly exhibited in the
sanctuary of Eleusis. The membrum virile or active principle of generation
was carried to the temple of Bacchus and there crowned with a garland by
one of the most respectable matrons of the town or city. The Egyptian
Osiris, and the female pudenda, or symbol of the passive principle of
generation were, in like manner, carried in procession to the temple of
Libera or Proserpine.
The worship of Priapus among the Romans was derived from the
Egyptians, who, under the form of Apis, the sacred Bull, worshipped the
generative power of nature; and, as the syllable pri or pre signifies, in the
Oriental tongue, principle, production, or natural or original source, the
word Priapus may be translated principle of production or of fecundation of
Apis. The same symbol also bore among the Romans the names of Tutunus,
Mutinus, and Fascinum. Among the many places where this divinity was
worshipped, Lampsacus,15 in Asia Minor, was the most noted on account of
the obscene rites there practised. The Priapi were of different forms; some
having only a human head and the Phallus; some with the head of Pan or of
a faun—that is, with the head and ears of a goat.16 Others, with their

indecent attribute, were placed in the public roads, and were then
confounded with the divinities Mercury and Terminus, who presided over
boundaries. Scaliger says that he saw at Rome, in the palace of a cardinal,17
a similar statue, whose phallus had served as a sign post.18 All the human
part of these Priapi were invariably painted red.19
When furnished with arms, which he was when representing Terminus,
Priapus held in one hand a reaping hook, and, like Osiris, grasped with the
other the characteristic feature of his divinity, which was always of a
monstrous size and in a state of energy.
In the towns, Priapus had public chapels, whither such devotees as were
suffering from maladies connected with his attributes repaired for the
purpose of offering to him ex-votos representing the parts afflicted; these
ex-votos being sometimes paintings and, at others, little figures made of
wax or of wood, and occasionally, even of marble.
Females as superstitious, as they were lascivious, might be seen offering in
public to Priapus, as many garlands as they had had lovers. These they
would hang upon the enormous phallus of the idol, which was often hidden
from sight by the number suspended by only one woman.
Others offered to the god as many phalli, made of the wood of the willow
tree, as they had vanquished men in a single night.
St. Augustine informs us that it was considered by the Roman ladies as a
very proper and pious custom to require young brides to seat themselves
upon the monstrous and obscene member of Priapus: and Lactantius says,
"Shall I speak of that Mutinus, upon the extremity of which brides are
accustomed to seat themselves in order that the god may appear to have
been the first to receive the sacrifice of their modesty?"20
These facts prove that the worship of Priapus had greatly degenerated with
the Romans, since, losing sight altogether of the object typified, they attach
themselves to the symbol alone, in which they could see only what was
indecent; and hence religion became a pretext for libertinism.21
Respected so long as the Roman manners preserved their pristine simplicity,
but degraded22 and vilified in proportion as the morals of that people

became corrupted, the very sanctuary itself of Priapus failed to protect him
from obloquy and ridicule. Christian writers added their indignant
invectives to the biting sarcasms of the poets, and the worship of Priapus
would have been annihilated had not superstition and the force of habit, that
most indestructible of all human affections, come to the rescue. These two
powerful levers of mankind triumphed over reason and Christianity, and
succeeded, notwithstanding the strenuous and continued efforts of the latter,
in maintaining in some degree the worship of that filthy deity; for the
Christian priests, while opposing à l'outrance, the superstitions and impure
practices already adverted to, did not so do, as regarded the other customs
equally repugnant to decency and true religion. Less austere to these, and
consulting their own interests, they turned to their profit the ancient worship
established by the Romans and strengthened by habit: they appropriated to
themselves what they could not destroy, and, in order to attract to their side
the votaries of Priapus, they made a Christian of him.
But besides the Lingham of the Indians, the Phallus of the Greeks, and the
Priapus of the Romans, the Cross ( ), although generally thought to be
exclusively emblematical of eternal life, has also an account of its fancied
similarity to the membrum virile, been considered by many as typical of the
reproductive powers of nature. It was known as such to the Indians, being
as common in their country as in Egypt or in Europe.23 "Let not the piety of
the Catholic Christian," says the Rev. Mr. Maurice, "be offended at the
preceding assertion that the Cross was one of the most usual symbols
among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and India. Equally honoured in the
Gentile and the world, this Christian emblem of universal nature, of that
world to whose four corners its diverging radii pointed, decorated the hands
of most of the sculptured images in the former country (Egypt), and the
latter (India) stamped its form upon the most majestic of the shrines of their
deities."
Plate V.

SYMBOLIC CROSSES.

It is well known that the cross was regarded by the ancient Egyptians as the
emblem of fruitfulness. Thus the Rev. Mr. Maurice describes a statue
bearing a kind, of cross in its hand as the symbol of fertility, or, in other
words, of the procreative and generative powers.24 The cross so common
upon Egyptian monuments was known to the Buddhists and to the Lama of

Thibet 700 years before Christ. The Lama takes his name from the Lamah,
which is an object of profound veneration with his followers: "Cequi est
remarquable," says M. Avril, "c'est que le grand prêtre des Tartares porte le
nom de Lama, qui, en langue Tartare, désigne la Croix, et les Bogdoi qui
conquirent la Chine en 1664, et qui sont soumis au Dulai-Lama dans les
choses de la religion, ont toujours des croix sur eux, qu'ils appalent
lamas."25
The letter Tau , being the last one of the ancient alphabets, was made to
typify, not only the end, boundary, or terminus of districts, but also the
generative power of the eternal transmigratory life, and was used
indiscriminately with the Phallus; it was, in fact, the Phallus.26 Speaking of
this emblem, Payne Knight observes: "One of the most remarkable of those
symbols of generation is a cross in the form of the letter , which thus
served as the emblem of creation and generation before the church adopted
it as the sign of salvation, a lucky coincidence of ideas which, without
doubt, facilitated the reception of it among the faithful."27 And again, "the
male organs of generation are sometimes represented by signs of the same
sort, which might properly be called symbols of symbols. One of the most
remarkable of these is the Cross in the form of the letter , which thus
served as the emblem of creation and generation."28

The famous Crux ansata29 which may be seen on all the monuments of
Egypt is what is alluded to by the Prophet Ezekiel,30 and is affirmed by the
learned L. A. Crozius to be nothing else than the triple Phallus mentioned
by Plutarch.31
We shall now proceed to notice a few of the traces of the phallic worship as
were still to be found lingering in some parts of Europe so late as the 18th
century, a tenacity of existence by no means surprising if it be considered
that of all the human affections none is more dangerous to oppose, none
more difficult to eradicate, than habit. Accordingly it will be found that the
above superstition has maintained itself in countries where Christianity was
already established, and that, bidding defiance to the severe precepts of that
pure faith, it successfully resisted for at least seventeen centuries every
effort made to extirpate it by the Christian clergy backed by the civil power.
Its triumph was, however, by no means complete, for this worship was

constrained to yield to circumstances and to use a disguise by adopting the
forms and designations peculiar to Christianity, a mask which on the other
hand, favoured not a little, its preservation.
Hence it was that the names of certain legendary saints were given to the
ancient God of Lampsacus,32 the said names having some relation either to
the act over which that deity presided, or to his most prominent attributes.
The first bishop of Lyon was honoured throughout Provence, Languedoc,
and the Lyonnais as a saint, and as his name happened to be Pothin, Photin,
or Fotin, commonly pronounced by the low orders Foutin, these people,
who are very apt to judge of the nature of things by the sound of the words
by which they are designated, thought St. Foutin worthy of replacing Saint
Priapus, and accordingly conferred upon him the prerogatives of his
predecessor.
Saint Foutin de Varailles had particular reverence paid to him in Provence,
nor is this to be wondered at, since the power was attributed to him of
rendering barren women fruitful, stimulating flagging husbands, and curing
their secret maladies. It was consequently the custom to lay upon his altar,
as was formerly done on that of the god Priapus, small votive offerings,
made of wax, and representing the weak or otherwise afflicted parts. Sanci
says, "To this saint are offered waxen models of the pudenda of both sexes.
They are strewn in great numbers over the floor of the chapel, and should a
gust of wind cause them to rustle against one another, it occasioned a
serious interruption to the devotions paid to the saint. I was very much
scandalized," continues he, "when, passing through the town, I found the
name of Foutin very common among the men. My landlord's daughter had
for godmother a young lady whose name was Foutine."
The same saint was similarly honoured at Embrun. When the Protestants
took that town in 1585, they found, among the relics of the principal
church, the Phallus of St. Foutin. The devotees of that town, in imitation of
pagan ones, made libations to this obscene idol. They poured wine over the
extremity of the Phallus, which was dyed red by it. This wine being
afterwards collected and allowed to turn sour, was called the holy vinegar,
and, according to the author from whom this account is taken,33 was applied

by women to a most extraordinary purpose; but what that purpose was we
are not informed, and therefore can only guess it.
At Orange there was also a phallus much venerated by the inhabitants of
that town. Larger than the one at Embrun, it was, moreover, covered with
leather, and furnished with its appendages. When, in 1562, the protestants
destroyed the church of St. Eutropius, in this town, they seized the
enormous Phallus and burned it in the market place. Similar Phalli were to
be found at Poligny, Vendre in the Bourbonnais, and at Auxerre.
The inhabitants of Puy-en-Velay even to this day speak of their St. Foustin
who, in times not far remote from our own, was invoked by barren women
who, under the idea of giving greater efficacy to their prayers, scraped the
phallus of the saint, and, mixing the particles so abraded in water, devoutly
swallowed them, in the hope of thereby being rendered fruitful.
It is no doubt to one of these phallic saints that Count de Gebelin refers
when, speaking of the goat Mendés, he says: "I have read somewhere that in
the south of France there existed not long ago a custom resembling the one
mentioned; the women of that part of the country devoutly frequented a
temple containing a statue of the saint, and which statue they embraced,
expecting that their barrenness would be removed by the operation.34
In the neighbourhood of Brest stood the chapel of the famous Saint
Guignole, or Guingalais, whose Phallic symbol consisted of a long wooden
beam which passed right through the body of the saint, and the fore-part of
which was strikingly characteristic. The devotees of this place, like those of
Puy-en-Velay, most devoutly rasped the extremity of this miraculous
symbol for the purpose of drinking the scrapings mixed with water as an
antidote against sterility, and when by the frequent repetition of this
operation, the beam was worn away, a blow with a mallet in the rear of the
saint propelled it immediately in front. Thus, although it was being
continually scraped, it appeared never to diminish, a miracle due
exclusively to the mallet.
Antwerp was the Lampsacus of Belgium, Priapus being the tutelary god of
that city. Ters was the name given to him by the inhabitants who held this
divinity in the greatest veneration. Females were accustomed to invoke him

on the most trivial occasions, a custom which Goropius informs us
continued as late as the 16th century.35
So inveterate was this superstition that Godefrey de Bouillon, marquis of
that city, the illustrious leader of the first crusade, in order to eradicate it, or
to replace it by the ceremonies of the Christian church, sent to Antwerp,
from Jerusalem, as a present of inestimable value, the foreskin of Jesus
Christ.36 This precious relic, however, found but little favour with the
Belgian ladies, and utterly failed to supersede their beloved Fascinum.37
In the kingdom of Naples, in the town of Trani, the capital of the province
of that name, there was carried in procession, during the Carnival, an old
wooden statue representing an entire Priapus, in the ancient proportions;
that is to say, that the distinguishing characteristic of that god was very
disproportioned to the rest of the idol's body, reaching, as it did, to the
height of his chin. The people called this figure il Santo Membro, the holy
member. This ancient ceremony, evidently a remains of the feasts of
Bacchus, called by the Greeks Dyonysiacs, and by the Romans Liberalia,
existed as late as the commencement of the 18th century, when it was
abolished by Joseph Davanzati, archbishop of that town.
Sir W. Hamilton's account of the worship paid to St. Cosmo and St.
Damianus is very curious. "On the 27th September, at Isernia, one of the
most ancient cities of the kingdom of Naples, situated in the province called
the Contado di Molise, and adjoining the Aruzzo, an annual fair is held
which lasts three days. On one of the days of the fair the relics of Sts.
Cosmo and Damianus are exposed. In the city and at the fair, ex-votos of
wax representing the male parts of generation, of various dimensions,
sometimes even of the length of a palm, are publicly exposed for sale.
There was also waxen vows that represent other parts of the body mixed
with them, but of those there are few in comparison of the number of the
Priapi.
Plate VI.

The distributors of these vows carry a basket full of them in one hand, and
hold a plate in the other, to receive the money, crying out, "Saints Cosmo
and Damianus!" If you ask the price of one, the answer is, "più ci metti, più
meriti;" the more you give, the more the merit. The vows are chiefly
presented by the female sex, and they are seldom such as represent legs,
arms, &c., but most commonly the male parts of generation. The person
who was at the féte, in the year 1780, and who gave me this account (the

authenticity of which has since been confirmed to me by the governer of
Isernia) told me also that he heard a woman say, at the time she presented a
vow, "Santo Cosmo, benedetto, cosi lo voglio." Blessed St. Cosmo, "let it be
like this!" The vow is never presented without being accompanied by a
piece of money, and is always kissed by the devotee at the moment of
presentation.38
But, as might naturally be expected, this does not suffice to fructify barren
women; and consequently another ceremony, one which is doubtless more
efficacious, was required.
The parties who resort to this fair, slept for two nights, some in the church
of the Capuchian friars and the others in that of the Cordeliers, and when
these two churchs were found to be insufficient to contain the whole of such
devotees, the church of the Hermitage of St. Cosmo received the surplus.
In the three edifices, the women were during the two nights, separated from
the men, the latter lying under the vestibule, and the women, in the church,
these, whether in the church of the Capuchins or in that of the Cordeliers,
were under the protection of the Father guardian, the vicar, and a monk of
merit. In the hermitage, it was the hermit himself who watched over them.
From this it may easily be imagined how the miracle was effected without
troubling Saint Cosmo and Saint Damianus at all, in the matter, as well as
that the virtue, possessed by those two saints was extended even to young
maidens and widows.

ESSAY II.

ANAPHRODISIA; OR, ABSENCE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE POWER.

DESCRIPTION of the symbols under which the reproductive
power was anciently worshipped, having been given in the
preceding Essay, the present one will contain some account of the

negation or absence of that faculty, whether total or partial, as known under
the names of Impotency and Sterility.
Potency or power, as regards the generative act, may be defined as—the
aptitude or ability to beget; and Impotency, the negation or absence of such
power.
The canon law distinguished three kinds of impotency—viz., that which
proceeds from frigidity; that which is caused by sorcery (ligature or point-
tying), and that which proceeding from some defect of conformation is
properly designated as impotentia coeundi. The different lends of
impotency may be thus classed—1. Those which are proper to men; 2.
Those proper to women, and 3. Those common to both sexes.
The causes of impotency proper to man are natural frigidity; defect of
conformation, and accident.
The causes of impotency proper to women are all such obstacles as arise ex
clausurâ uteri aut nimia arctitudine.
The causes common both to men and women are the defect of puberty and
imperfect conformation.39
Impotency may also be divided into natural and accidental; the former
being that which a person is born with, or which proceeds ex vitio naturalis
temperamenti vel partium genitalium; and the latter that which arises from
some accident, as ex casu vel morbo.40
Another definition of impotency in man is the non posse seminare in vase
idoneo; three things being considered as indispensable to his due
performance of the generative act.—Ut arriget or erection; 2, Ut vas
fœmineum resaret, or intromission, and 3, Ut in vase seminat, or emission.
Sterility must not be confounded with impotency. Many women are barren,
but very few are impotent; while, on the contrary, many men are impotent
who ought not, on that account, to be regarded as barren. In either sex
impotency is present when from whatever cause an individual cannot
concur in the sexual contact. Sterility exists when the contact, after having
been regularly accomplished, is followed by no productive result.

With the exception of those pathological cases in which deformities are
sometimes, but very rarely, met with, it may be affirmed that woman is
never impotent, for her organization opposes it. Radical impotence, in fact,
results in the female from the complete absence, or the occlusion simply, of
the vagina. Now, these cases are extremely rare, and may there fore be
considered as exceptions or as real monstrosities.
As the causes of sterility in women are numerous and of various kinds, we
shall briefly enumerate them.
The absence of ovaries or their deceased state are the radical cause of
sterility. These causes may be suspected but not cured. When there is no
uterus, still fecundation and pregnancy are not impossible, since extra-
uterine pregnancies are occasionally observed, that is to say, cases in which
the product of conception has escaped the uterus, and proceeded to establish
itself in some point of the lower belly. Neither is the vagina indispensable,
for cases are cited of the contraction of this organ accompanied by the
rectovaginal fistula, in which fecundation is effected, although the
fecundating fluid had been confined to the rectum.
Female masturbation is another rife cause of barrenness in women. If it be
true that the number of eggs is limited, and that there are not more than
from 15 to 20 in each ovary, it is evident that sterility must ensue when
these 15 or 20 eggs have been detached without fecundation. If, on the
contrary, new eggs are continually secreted by the ovaries, it is equally
evident that the secretory action must, sooner or later, become exhausted by
the over excitement caused by the indulgence above mentioned.
Another very great cause of sterility, and which must be of frequent
occurrence, is found in the obstructed or choked-up state of the Fallopian
tubes. These passages, which establish the communication between the
ovary and the uterus, may be obstructed by inflammation, either acute or
chronic, to which they must be subject in all diseases to the abdomen, as
well as by frequent excitement.
Morgagni speaks of certain women of the town, with whom the Fallopian
tubes were completely obliterated by the thickening of the parietes or sides,
an evident consequence of the continual orgasm in which they were kept by
immoderate indulgence in coition.

The absence of menstruation almost always induces barrenness. Cases are,
notwithstanding, reported in which women have their menses during
pregnancy, but these are exceptions which so far from invalidating the rule,
confirm it.
Polypi, or the developement of fibrous bodies in the uterus, present an equal
obstacle to fecundation, their presence having the effect of perverting the
physiological functions of the uterus, nor does their removal always cause
sterility to disappear.
Impotency in women can only result from the absence of the vagina, or
from its excessive narrowness which does not allow of the approach of the
male, although instances have occured of fecundation being effected
without the introduction of the male organ. Thus cases have been found of
women who have been fecundated, and have even arrived at the term of
pregnancy, having been obliged to submit to a surgical operation for the
removal of the Hymen, which membrane had not been broken in the acts
which had nevertheless effected the fecundation. Lastly, the excessive
length, when it does exist, of the clitoris, also opposes the conjugal act, by
the difficulty it presents to the introduction of the fecundating organ; the
only remedy to employed in this case consists in amputation, an operation
which has been frequently performed. The organ in question is known to
resemble, in a very great degree, the virile member, both in external form
and internal structure, to be susceptible of erection and relaxation and
endowned with exquisite sensibility. It has been seen equal to the penis in
volume. A remarkable instance is given by Home.41 It occured in a negress
who was purchased by General Melville, in the island of Dominica, in the
West Indies, about the year 1744. She was of the Mandango nation, 24
years of age, her breasts were very flat, she had a rough voice, and a
masculine countenance. The clitoris was two inches long, and in thickness
resembled a common sized thumb, when viewed at same distance the end
appeared round and of a red colour, but upon closer examination was found
to be more pointed than that of a penis, and having neither prepuce nor
perforation; when handled it became half erected, and was in that state fully
three inches long and much thicker than before: when she voided her urine
she was obliged to lift it up, as it completely covered the orifice of the
urethra. The other parts of the female organs were found to be in a natural
state. Columbus quotes the existence of a woman who had a clitoris as long

as the little finger. Haller speaks of another in whom this organ was seven
inches in length. Some have even been said to be of the monstrous length of
twelve inches. These are the enormous dimensions which sometimes
deceive as to the real character of the sex, and which have occasioned a
belief in the existence of real hermaphrodites. Women so formed have also
a great disposition to usurp the virile functions; they preserve scarcely
anything of their sex except their habits and manners. Their stature is in
general tall, their limbs muscular, their face masculine, their voice deep, and
their deportment bold and manly—in a word, they completely justify the
words of Martial:
"Mentiturque virum prodigiosa Venus."42

In the case of man's impotency it often happens, on the contrary, that, with
organs to all appearance perfectly formed, he is, nevertheless, impotent.
If the woman be organized for receiving, the man is formed for imparting;
now, in the majority, of cases, his impotency is such that, although he seems
to be provided with abundant stores he is precluded from offering them.
... "Si
Coneris, jacet exiguus cum ramice nervus
Et quamvis tota palpetur nocte, jacebit."43

Such, in fact, is the great difficulty of those individuals who have abused
their organs and destroyed their sensibility. The erectile tissue whose
turgescence is indispensable, no longer admits into its vascular plexus or
network, a quantity of fluid sufficient to give the organ the power of
penetrating—jacet exiguus—and, although it may be supposed that the
seminal glands perform their functions perfectly well, and secrete
abundantly the fluid peculiar to them, the copulative organ remains
paralyzed. This is the impotence which is brought on by old age, and which
Ariosto has so forcibly described in the following lines, wherein he relates
the futile attempts made upon Angelica by the hermit:
Egli l'abbraccia, ed a piacer la tocca:
Ed ella dorme, e non più fare ischermo:
Or le baccia il bel petto, ora la bocca,
Non è, ch'l veggia, in quel loco aspro ed ermo.
Ma nel incontro, it suo destrier trabocca
Che al desio non risponde, it corpo infirmo:
. . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
Tutte le vie, tutti i modi tenta,
Ma quel pigre rozzo non però salta
Indarno el fren gli scoute e li tormenta
E non può far che tenga la testa alta.44

At other times the impotency of the man is independent of the secretion of
the fecundating fluid and even of the erection, both of which are regular. In
such case it is caused either by the gland not being properly perforated, or
by a contraction of the urethral canal, which contraction arrests the seminal
fluid at the moment of expulsion, causing it to flow back towards the
bladder, or else intercepting the continuous stream and allowing it to run by
dribblets only. The former of these imperfections technically called
Hypospadias is a vice of conformation in which the penis, instead of being
perforated at the summit of the gland, presents its opening at a greater or
less distance from the gland, at the lower part of the urethra or at the
perinæum.
As might be expected, impotency when precocious, influences, in no small
degree, the moral character. Cabanis knew three men who, in the vigour of
age, had suddenly became impotent, although in other respects they were in
good health, much engaged in business, and had but little reason to be
affected by the loss of pleasures in which they indulged but very rarely and
with great moderation, yet their character became gloomy and irascible, and
their mental powers appeared to diminish daily.45 The celebrated Ribeiro
Sanchez, a pupil of Boerhaave, observes in his "Traité des maladies
Vénériennes chroniques," that these diseases particularly dispose those
subject to them to superstitious terrors.
Impotency may, however, equally proceed from moral as from physical
causes. In this case it consists in the total privation of the sensibility
peculiar to the reproductive organs. This insensibility is by no means
infrequent in persons whose mental powers are continually in action, as the
following case will shew:—
A celebrated mathematician of a very robust constitution, having married a
young and pretty woman, lived several years with her, but had not the
happiness of becoming a father. Far from being insensible to the charms of
his fair wife, he, on the contrary, felt frequently impelled to gratifying his

passion, but the conjugal act, complete in every other respect, was never
crowned by the emission of the seminal fluid. The interval of time which
occurred between the commencement of his labour of love and the end was
always sufficiently long to allow his mind, which had been for a moment
abstracted by his pleasure, to be brought back to the constant objects of his
meditation—that is, to geometrical problems or algebraical formula. At the
very moment even of the orgasm, the intellectual powers resumed their
empire and all genital sensation vanished. Peirible, his medical adviser,
recommended Madame —— never to suffer the attentions of her husband
until he was half-seas-over, this appearing to him the only practicable
means of withdrawing her learned spouse from influence of the divine
Urania and subjecting him more immediately to that of the seductive
goddess of Paphos. The advice proved judicious. Monsieur —— became
the father of several fine and healthy boys and girls, thus furnishing another
proof of the truth of the maxim, "Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus."
But the impotency arising from the predominance of the intellect is the least
formidable of all. The one most to be dreaded is that which results from the
excessive and premature exercise of the reproductive functions, for, as has
been well observed, "the too frequent indulgence of a natural propensity at
first increases the concomitant desire and makes its gratification a part of
the periodical circle of action; but by degrees the over excitement of the
organs, abating their tone and vitality, unfits them for the discharge of their
office, the accompanying pleasures are blunted, and give place to satiety
and disgust."46
Such unfortunate persons as are the victims of this kind of anaphrodisia
become old long before their natural time, and have all their generative
apparatus blasted with impotency. Their testicles withered and dried up
secrete nothing but a serous fluid void of all virtue; the erectile tissue no
longer admits into its plexus the quantum of blood necessary for
turgescence, the principal organ of the reproductive act remains in a state of
flaccidity, insensible to the reiterated and most stimulating solicitations; the
muscles destined to favour erection are stricken with paralysis, and the
violence of their desires, joined to the want of power to gratify them, drives
the unhappy victim to acts of the most revolting lubricity and thence to
despair.

An instance of this kind occurred in the case of a young man, the son of an
opulent family. He had arrived at puberty, but from the early age of ten had
been accustomed to indulge in indecent familiarities with young girls, who
had gratified him by lascivious manipulations; the consequence was an
entire loss of the erectile power. Travelling being recommended, he
proceeded to France, where he consulted, but without avail, several
celebrated physicians. He then went to the waters of Spa, and there his case
was attentively and anxiously considered by Van-Hers.
The sensibility and weakness of the genital member were so great that on
the slightest touch, and without any sensation or desire to sexual intercourse
the young man emitted a fluid similar to whey. This secretion continued
night and day, every time that he made water, or upon the slightest friction
of his linen. After various remedies being proposed, without any beneficial
results, Van-Hers considered the disease as incurable; but, as the patient
would not coincide in his opinion and was very rich, he continued his
travels in Italy, France, and Germany, in the hope of recovering his powers
of virility. He failed not, as usual, to meet with physicians who, from
mercenary motives, held out to him the most illusory prospects of a perfect
cure. At length, after six years passed in travelling and in vain attempts to
regain the generative faculty, he returned to the candid and able physician
from whom he had the truth, and whose opinion he was now convinced was
but too well founded. As may be supposed, Van-Hers perceived no new
circumstance to justify an alteration in his view of the case, and the
unfortunate young man returned home, deeply deploring the advantages of
a fortune which had made him the victim of the precocious abuse of
pleasures to which he must now bid adieu for ever.47 Too great warmth of
passion may not only defeat its own object, but also produce a temporary
impotency. A lover, after having, with all the ardour of affections, longed
for the enjoyment of his mistress, finds himself at the moment of fruition
incapable of consummating his happiness. The only remedy for this
misfortune is to allay the over-excitement and to restrain the exuberance of
the imagination. It would be madness to persist in endeavouring to obtain a
victory which must be certain, as soon as the heat of the animal spirits being
abated, a portion of them proceeds to animate the agents of voluptuous
passion. The following are cases of this description.

"A young man whose wife's relations had promised him a considerable
estate as soon as she proved to be pregnant, fatigued himself to no purpose
by continued devotions at the shrine of love; his over anxiety defeating the
very object he so ardently desired to accomplish. In despair at the failure of
his repeated efforts, he was, at length, on the point of believing his wife
barren, when, following the advice of a judicious physician, he absented
himself from home for a fortnight, and upon his return proved by the
success which attended his amorous labours, that absence is sometimes the
best doctor."
"A noble Venetian, aged twenty years, was married to a very handsome
lady, with whom he cohabited with a good deal of vigour, but never could
emit semen in the coition, whereas in his dreams he could discharge very
freely. This misfortune very much afflicted him and his family; and as no
remedy could be found at home, the Venetian ambassadors residing at the
different courts of Europe were desired to consult some of the most eminent
physicians in the cities where they resided, to account for the causes, and to
find a cure for this extraordinary complaint of the difference of the states
when in sleep and when actually in coition.
"I was of opinion that it consisted altogether in the urethra being closely
shut by the vigour of the erection in coition which found so great a
resistance that the powers that throw the seed out of the vesiculæ seminals
could not overcome it; whereas, in dreams, the pressure on the urethra
being much less, an evacuation was affected."
The method of cure was not less successful than obvious from the foregoing
account: for gentle evacuations and a slender diet brought about and fully
completed their desires.48
Cabanis is of opinion that debility of the stomach almost always produces a
similar state in the organs of generation. "L'énergie ou la débilité de
l'éstomac produit, presque toujours, un état analogue dans ceux de la
génération. J'ai soigné un jeune homme chez qui la paralysie accidentelle de
ces derniers avait été produit par certains vices de la digestion stomachique;
et qui reprit la vigueur de son âge, aussitôt qu'il eût récouvré la puissance de
digérer."49

Old Montaigne's advice in cases similar to those above cited is worthy of
notice. "As to what concerns married people," says he, "having the year
before them, they ought never to compel, or so much as offer at the feat, if
they do not find themselves very ready. And it is better indecently to fail of
handling the nuptial sheets, and of paying the ceremony due to the wedding
night, when man perceives himself full of agitation and trembling,
expecting another opportunity at a better and more private leisure, when his
fancy shall be better composed, than to make himself perpetually miserable
for having misbehaved himself, and being baffled at the first result. Till
possession be taken, a man that knows himself subject to this infirmity,
should leisurely and by degrees make certain little trials and light offers,
without attempting at once to force an absolute conquest over his own
mutinous and indisposed faculties; such as know their members to be
naturally obedient to their desires, need to take no other care but only to
counterplot their fancy. The indocile and rude liberty of this scurvy
member, is sufficiently remarkable by its importunate, unruly, and
unseasonable tumidity and impatience at such times as we have nothing for
it to do, and by its most unseasonable stupidity and disobedience when we
stand most in need of its vigour, so imperiously contesting the authority of
the will, and with so much obstinacy denying all solicitations of hand and
fancy. And yet, though his rebellion is so universally complained of, and
that proofs are not wanting to condemn him, if he had, nevertheless, feed
me to plead his cause, I should, peradventure, bring the rest of his fellow-
members into suspicion of complotting the mischief against him, out of
pure envy of the importance and ravishing pleasure peculiar to his
employment, so as to have, by confederacy, armed the whole world against
him, by malevolently charging him alone with their common offence."50
Too great warmth of clothing round the parts of generation, or too great
pressure upon them, may be reckoned as causes of impotency. The custom
of wearing breeches was considered by Hippocrates51 as a predisposing
cause of the impotency so common among the ancient Scythians. Mr.
Hunter was also of opinion that this article of dress by keeping the parts too
warm, affording them a constant support, and allowing the muscles but little
freedom of motion, may, at least, relax and cause them to become flaccid, if
it do not totally incapacitate them for the due performance of their
functions.

Equally disadvantageous, in this respect, is the practice of riding upon
horseback, as the organs of generation are, of necessity, frequently
compressed either against the saddle or the horse's back. Lalemant, in his
Commentaries upon Hippocrates, adduces the case of bakers, upon whom,
by their not wearing breeches, the contrary effect is produced. "We have
often heard," says he, "that bakers and others whose parts of generation are
not covered by clothing, but hang freely, have large, well-grown testicles.52
Another cause of impotency is the allowing the parts of generation to
remain too long in a state of inaction. Those parts of the body which are
most exercised are always found to be better grown, stronger, and more
fitted for the discharge of their natural functions provided the exercise be
neither too violent nor too frequent. The parts, on the contrary, which are
condemned to rest and inactivity wither and gradually lose their tone, as
well as the power of effecting the movements natural to them. Galen
observes that the genital organs of the athletæ, as well as those of all such
whose profession or calling compelled them to remain chaste, were
generally shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, and that the
contrary is the case with those who use them to an excess. "All the athletæ,"
says he, "as well as those who for the sake of preserving or improving the
voice, are, from their youth, debarred the pleasures of love, have their
natural parts shrunken and wrinkled like those of old men, while, in such as
have from an early age indulged in those delights to an excess, the vessel of
those parts, by the habit of being dilated, cause the blood to flow there in
great abundance, and the desire of coition to be proportionately increased,
all which is a natural consequence of those general laws which all our
faculties obey. Thus it is that the breasts of women who have never had
children remain always small, while those of females who have been
mothers, and who suckle their children, acquire a considerable volume, that
they continue to give milk as long as they suckle their infants, and that their
milk does not fail until they cease to nourish them."53 So well, indeed, was
this fact known to the ancients, that Aristophanes uses the expression,
πόσθην μικραν, penem exiguum, as an attribute of a youth who has
preserved his innocence and κωλῆν μεγάλην, penem magnum, as the sign of
a dissolute one.
It will easily be supposed that superstition when brought to act upon weak
and ignorant minds, is capable of producing temporary impotence. The

pretended charm or witchery common in France as late as the close of the
17th century, and known by the name of nouer l'aiguillette (point tying) is a
proof of this:
Ami lecteur, vous avez quelquefois
Oui conter qu'on nouait l'aiguillette,
C'est une étrange et terrible recette,
Et dont un Saint ne doit jamais user,
Que quand d'un autre il ne peut s'aviser.
D'un pauvre amant, le feu se tourne en glance;
Vif et perclus, sans rien faire, il se lasse;
Dans ses efforts étonné de languir,
Et consume sur le bord du plaisir.
Telle une fleur des fear du jour séchée,
La tête basse, et la tige penchée,
Demande en vain les humides vapeurs
Qui lui rendaient la vie et les couleurs.54

In olden times, prior to the invention of buttons, the femoral habiliments of
men, or hose, as they were called, were fastened up by means of tags or
points (Gallice) aiguillettes. Thus, Falstaff says, "Their points being cut,
down fell their hose." From this French word aiguillette was derived the
term nouer aiguillette (to tie up the points), equivalent to—button up the
flap, to express the rendering, by enchantment, a husband incapable of
performing the conjugal rite. The whole secret of this charm consisted in
the impostor choosing for his victim an individual whose youth,
inexperience, or superstition presented him with a fit subject to work upon.
The imagination of the party being already predisposed for the trick, a look,
a sign, a menace, either of the voice or of the hand, accompanied by some
extraordinary gesture, was sufficient to produce the effect, and, as the mere
apprehension of an evil frequently occasions its occurrence, it followed
that, superstition having prepared the event, the latter, in his turn, fortified
the superstition, a vicious circle which may justly be considered an
opprobrium to a man's intelligence.
That such was the opinion entertained of it by sensible men when it was in
vogue, will be seen by the following curious passage from an old and quaint
French writer:
"Quelques uns tiennent cela pour superstition, qui quand on dit la Messe des espousées, lorsque l'on
prononce ce mot Sara, à la bénédiction nuptiale, si vous estrerignez une esguillette, que le marié ne
pourra rien faire á son espousée la nuict suyuante, tant que la dite esguillette demeurera noüée. Ce
que j'ay veu expérimenter faux infinies fois: car pourveuque l'esguillette du compagnon soit

destachée, et qu'il siot bien roide et bien au point il ne faut point douter qu'il n'accoustre bien la
besongne, comme il appartient. Aussi donne l'on vn folastre amulette et digne du subject: c'est à
sçavoir que pour oster le sort, it faut pisser au travers d'une bague de laquelle on a esté espousé.
Véritablement ie le croy: car c'est à dire, en bon Français que si on degoutte dans cet anneau de Hans
Carvel, il n'y a charme qui puisse nuire. Aussi nouer l'esguillette ne signifie autre chose qu'vn coüard
amant qui aura le mēbre aussi peu disposé, que si l'esguillette ne sa brayette estoit nouée.55

As to the mode itself of conjuration, Bodin, a writer upon these subjects,
asserts that there are not less than fifty different ways of performing it: of
all which the most efficacious one is to take a small strip or thong of
leather, or silken or worsted thread, or cotton cord, and to make on it three
knots successively, each knot, when made, being accompanied by the sign
of the cross, the word Ribald being pronounced upon making the first knot,
Nabal upon making the second one, and Vanarbi upon making the third and
last one; all which must be done during the celebration of the marriage
ceremony. For the sake of change, one of the verses of the Miserere mei,
Deus! may be repeated backwards, the names of the bride and bridegroom
being thrice pronounced. The first time, the knot must be drawn rather tight;
the second time still more so, and the third time quite close. Vulgar
operators content themselves with pronouncing some cabalistic words
during the marriage rite, tracing, at the same time, some mysterious figures
or diagrams on the earth with the left foot, and affixing to the dress of the
bride or bridegroom small slips of paper having magical characters
inscribed upon them. Further details may be found in the works of
Sprenger, an inquisitor, Crespet of Sans, Debris, a Jesuit, Bodin, Wier, De
Lancre, and other learned demonologists.
This species of enchantment was not unknown to the ancients. Accordingly
to Herodotus56 Amasis was prevented enjoying his wife Ladice by a sorcery
of this description, nor was it till after the Queen had vowed a statue to
Venus, "si secum coiret Amasis," that the king's wishes and her own were
gratified.

Plato warns married persons against such sorceries.57 Virgil speaks also of
impotency effected by ligature.
Terna tibi hæc primum, duplici diversa colore
Licia circumdo.58

Ovid admits the power of such charms in the following lines:

Carmine læsa, Ceres sterilem vanescit in herbam
Deficiunt læsi carmine fontis aquæ:
Ilicibus glandes, cantataque vitibus uva
Decedit, et nulla forma movente, flexunt.
Quid vetat et nervos
Et juveni et Cupido, carmine abesse viro.59

Of that most detestable of all tyrants, Nero, it is said that, finding he could
not enjoy a female whom he passionately desired, he complained of having
been bewitched.

The fables of Apuleius are full of the enchantments of Pamphilus.60
Numantina, the first wife of Plautius Sylvanus, was accused of having
rendered her husband impotent by means of sorcery "injecisse carminibus et
veneficiis vecordium marito."61
Paulus (Julius) of Tyr states that the law of the Twelve Tables contained an
express prohibition against the employment of ligatures; "qui, sacra, impia
nocturnave fecerint, ut quem incantarent, obligarent," &c.62

Gregory of Tours relates63 that Eulatius having taken a young woman from
a monastery and married her, his concubines, actuated by jealousy, put such
a spell upon him, that he could by no means consummate his nuptials.
Paulus Æmilius, in his life of King Clovis says that Theodoric sent back his
wife Herméberge to her father, the King of Spain, as he had received her, a
pure virgin, the force of witchcraft having incapacitated him from taking
her maidenhead; which sorcery Aimoinus Monachaus64 asserts to have been
effected by Queen Brunchante.
The practise of point tying was formerly so general that princes and
princess made it one of their most amusing pastimes. Louis Sforza having
seen the young Princess Isabella, daughter of Alphonso King of Arragon,
and who was betrothed to Galeas, duke of Milan, was so enamoured of her
beauty that he point-tyed Galeas for several months. Marie de Padille,
concubine of Don Pedro King of Castille and Leon, point-tied him so
effectually that he could not give the least marks of his fondness to his
consort Queen Blanche.

That the church acknowledged the power of these point-tiers is proved by
the fact of their having been publicly anathematized by the provincial
Councils of Milan and Tours, the Synods of Mont-Cassin and Ferriare, and
by the clergy of France assembled at Mélun in 1579. A great number of
rituals specify the means to be employed as counter-charms to the sorceries
of the point-tiers; and the Cardinal Cu Perron,65 a very able and
experienced prelate, has inserted in the ritual of Evreux very sage directions
for this purpose. Similar precautions may be found in the synodal statues of
Lyons, Tours, Sens, Narbonne, Bourges, Troyes, Orléans, and many other
celebrated churches. St. Augustine, St. Thomas and Peter Lombard
positively recognise the power of point-tying and of disturbing, in this
manner, married persons in the enjoyment of their dearest privilege.
"Certum est," says St. Augustine, "corporis vires incantationibus vinciri."
Our James I., who prided himself so much upon his skill in demonology,
declares positively that sorcerers and witches possess the power of point-
tying, "Or else by staying married folkes, to have naturally adoe with other,
by knitting knottes upon a point at the time of their marriage."66
The old parliament of France have generally admitted the power of these
sorcerers. In 1582 the Parliament of Paris condemned one Abel de la Rue to
be hung and afterwards burnt for having wickedly and wilfully point-tied
Jean Moreau de Contommiers. A singular sentence was pronounced in 1597
against M. Chamouillard for having so bewitched a young lady about to be
married that her husband could not consummate the marriage. But the most
singular instance of the kind upon record is that of R. F. Vidal de la Porte,
who was condemned by the judges of Riom to make the amende honorable,
and afterwards to be hung, and his lady to be burnt until reduced to ashes
for having by sorceries and wicked and sacrilegious words point-tied, not
only the young men of his town, but also all the dogs, cats and other
domestic animals, so that the propagation of these species so useful to man
was upon the point of being stopped. In 1718 the Parliament of Bordeaux
ordered a famous point-tier to be burnt. This pretended sorcerer had been
accused and convicted of having point-tied a nobleman of high family, his
wife, and all the men and women servants in his establishment.
It must not be supposed that no counter-charms or amulets existed. The
Curate Thiers, who has written at large upon this subject, enumerates

twenty-two different ones, the most potent of which were the following:
1. To put salt in the pocket before proceeding to church; pennies marked
with the cross and put into the shoes of the bride and bridegroom were
equally efficacious.
2. To pass three times under the crucifix without bowing to it.
3. For the bridegroom to wear upon the wedding day, two shirts, one turned
inside out upon the other, and to hold, in the left hand, during the nuptial
benediction, a small wooden cross.
4. To lay the new married couple naked upon the ground; to cause the
bridegroom to kiss the great toe of the bride's left foot, and the bride the
great toe of the bridegroom's right foot: after which they must make the sign
of the cross with the left hand and repeat the same with the right or left
hand.
5. To take the bridegroom's point-hose and pass it through the wedding ring:
knot the said point, holding the fingers in the ring, and afterwards cut the
knot saying, "God loosens what the Devil fastens."
6. When the new-married couple are about to retire for the night to fasten
upon the thigh of each a little slip of paper, inscribed with these words,
Domine, quis similis tibi?
7. To broach a cask of white wine from which none has yet been drawn, and
pour the first of the liquor which flows, through the wedding ring.
8. To rub with wolf's grease the door posts through which the married
couple pass on their way to the nuptial bed.
9. To write upon virgin parchment before sunrise, and for nine days
successively, the word Arigazartor.
10. To pronounce the word Temon three times successively at sunrise,
provided the day promises to be fine.
But the mode of procedure in which the learned curate Thiers appears to
place the greatest confidence is that employed by a priest of his
acquaintance. This person's plan was to tie the bride and bridegroom to a

pillar and administer to them with his own hand the stimulus with which the
pedagogue awakens the genius of idle and sluggish pupils; after this
flagellation they are unbound and left together, amply provided with such
restorative and stimulants as are proper to maintain the condition so
favourable to Venus, in which he had placed them. The result was in the
highest degree satisfactory.
Bodin informs us that he knew at Bordeaux, a woman of middle age, but
still lively and fresh, who professed to cure radically all enchantments of
this description. Nothing could be more natural than her modus operandi.
She got into bed with her patients, and there by the resources of her amatory
powers succeeded so well in arousing their flagged and sluggish desires that
their domestic peace was never afterwards disturbed by the reproaches of
their disappointed spouses. Upon her mother's death, the daughter embraced
the same interesting profession and in addition to acquiring considerable
reputation by her successful practise, realized a handsome fortune.
Ridiculous and contemptible as this quackery now appears, so great at one
time was its power, that persons every way qualified for the generative act,
have been seen suddenly reduced to a humiliating nullity, in consequence of
an impudent charlatan, a village sorcerer or a fortune-teller having
threatened them with point-tying. Saint André, a French physician, gives an
account of a poor weaver, who having disappointed Madame André in not
bringing home some work was threatened by that lady with being point-tied
by her husband the doctor. The poor fellow was so alarmed that the charm
had the same effect as a reality, nor was it until the work he had in hand was
finished, and the lady had consented to restore him to his natural state, that
he could resume the exercises of his conjugal duties.
Venette gives the case of one Pierre Buriel. "This man," to use Venette's
own words, "was about thirty-five years of age, a cooper and brandy
manufacturer by trade. Being at work one day for my father in one of his
country houses, he offended me by some impertinent observations, to
punish which I told him the next day that I would point-tie him when he
married. It so happened that he had the intention of uniting himself with a
servant girl who lived in the neighbourhood, and although I had threatened
him merely in a jesting manner, it made so strong an impression upon him
that although, when married, he felt the most ardent desire to enjoy his

connubial rights, he found himself totally incapacitated for the work of
love. Sometimes when he flattered himself with being on the point of
accomplishing his wishes, the idea of the witchcraft obtruded itself, and
rendered him for the time completely impotent. This incapacity alienated
the affections of his wife, and produced on her part towards him the most
repulsive coldness. I need not say what gain I felt on witnessing these
effects, how I regretted having, I may truly say, unintentionally caused so
unpleasant a state of things, and I did and said everything in my power to
disabuse the man, and prove to him the folly of his impressions. But the
more I did so, the more he testified his abhorrence of me, and his conviction
that I had really bewitched him. At length the curate of Notre Dame, who
had married them, interfered, and after some time succeeded, though with
considerable difficulty, in freeing him from his imaginary bonds. They lived
together for twenty-eight years, and several children, now citizens of
Rochelle, were the issue of their union."
Montaigne gives us a curious story upon this subject, which he introduces
thus: "I am not satisfied and make a very great question, whether those
pleasant ligatures with which the age of ours is so fettered—and there is
almost no other talk—are not mere voluntary impressions of apprehension
and fear; for I know by experience, in the case of a particular friend of
mine, one for whom I can be as responsible as for myself, and a man that
cannot possibly fall under any manner of suspicion of sufficiency, and as
little of being enchanted, who having heard a companion of his make a
relation of an unusual frigidity that surprised him at a very unseasonable
time, being afterwards himself engaged upon the same account, the horror
of the former story so strangely possessed his imagination that he ran the
same fortune the other had done; he from that time forward (the scurvy
remembrance of his disaster running in his mind and tyrannizing over him)
was extremely subject to relapse into the same misfortune. He found some
remedy, however, for this inconvenience by himself frankly confessing and
declaring beforehand to the party with whom he was to have to do, the
subjection he lay under, and the infirmity he was subject to; by which
means the contention of his soul was, in some sort, appeased; and knowing
that now some such misbehaviour was expected from him, the restraint
upon those faculties grew less, and he less suffered by it, and afterwards, at
such times as he could be in no such apprehension as not being about any

such act (his thoughts being then disengaged and free, and his body being in
its true and natural state) by causing those parts to be handled and
communicated to the knowledge of others, he was at last totally freed from
that vexatious infirmity. After man has once done a woman right, he is
never after in danger of misbehaving himself with that person, unless upon
the account of a manifest and inexcusable weakness. Neither is this disaster
to be feared but in adventures where the soul is over-extended with desire
or respect, and especially where we meet with an unexpected opportunity
that requires a sudden and quick despatch; and in these cases, there is no
possible means for a man always to defend himself from such a surprise as
shall put him damnably out of countenance. And yet I have known some
who have secured themselves for this misfortune by coming half-sated
elsewhere, purposely to abate the ardour of their fury, and others who being
grown old, find themselves less impotent by being less able; and
particularly one who found an advantage by being assured by a friend of his
that had a countercharm against certain enchantments that would defend
him from this disgrace. The story itself is not much amiss, and therefore
you shall have it.—A count of a very great family, and with whom I had the
honour to be familiarly intimate, being married to a very fair lady, who had
formerly been pretended to and importunately courted by one who was
invited to and present at the wedding. All his friends were in very great fear,
but especially an old lady, his kinswoman, who had the ordering of the
solemnity, and in whose house it was kept, suspecting his rival would, in
revenge, offer foul play, and procure some of these kinds of sorceries to put
a trick upon him, which fear she also communicated to me, who, to comfort
her, bade her not trouble herself, but rely upon my care to prevent or
frustrate any such designs. Now, I had, by chance, about me, a certain flat
piece of gold, whereon were graven some celestial figures good to prevent
frenzy occasioned by the heat of the sun, or for any pains of the head, being
applied to the suture; where, that it might the better remain firm, it was
sewed to a ribbon, to be tied under the chin. A foppery cousin-german to
this of which I am speaking was Jacques Pelletier who lived in the house,
presented to me for a singular rarity and a thing of sovereign virtue. I had a
fancy to make some use of this quack, and therefore privately told the count
that he might probably run the same fortune other bridegrooms had
sometimes done, especially some persons being in the house who, no doubt,
would be glad to do him such a courtesy; but let him boldly go to rest, for I

would do him the office of a friend, and if need were, would not spare a
miracle that it was in my power to do, provided he could engage to me,
upon his honour, to keep it to himself, and only when they came to bring
him his candle (a custom in France being to bring the bridegroom a candle
in the middle of the night, on his wedding night) if matters had not gone
well with him, to give such a sign, and leave the rest to me. Now, he had his
ears so battered and his mind so prepossessed with the eternal tattle of this
business, that when he came to it, he did really find himself tired with the
trouble of his imagination, and accordingly, at the time appointed, gave me
the sign. Whereupon I whispered him in the ear, that he should rise under
pretence of putting us out of the room, and after a jesting manner, pull my
night-gown from my shoulders, throw it over his own, and keep it there till
he had performed what I appointed him to do, which was that when we
were all gone out of the chamber, he should withdraw to make water,
should three times repeat such and such words and as often do such and
such actions; that at every of the three times be should tie the ribbon I put
into his hand about his middle, and be sure to place the medal that was
fastened to it (the figures in such a posture) exactly upon his reins; which
being done, and having the last of the three times so well girt and fastened
the ribbon that it could neither untie nor slip from its place, let him
confidently return to his business, and withal not to forget to spread my
gown upon the bed so that it might be sure to cover them both. These
ridiculous circumstances are the main of the effect, our fancy being so far
seduced as to believe that so strange and uncouth formalities must of
necessity proceed from some abstruse science. Their inanity gives them
reverence and weight. However, certain it is that my figures proved
themselves more Veneran than Solar, and the fair bride had no reason to
complain."
Upon a due consideration of this singular superstition, it must be obvious to
any person of sense that these pretended ligatures are, in fact, the
consequence of an enfeebled constitution, weak intellects, and sometimes of
an ardent imagination, an over-excited desire which carries the vitality to
the head, and diverts it from its principal direction. Do away with these
circumstances and imagine a man in full health, and gifted with a young
and vigorous constitution, alike incapable of allowing himself to be acted
upon by vain terrors, and of permitting his passions an uncontrolable

course; and all the charms and incantation of these redoubted point-tiers
would immediately cease. Who, for instance, could pretend to point-tie that
hero of ancient Greece so famous for his twelve labours, of which by far the
most brilliant was the transforming, in the course of one night, fifty young
virgins into as many women!67
The most singular circumstance, however, connected with impotency is,
that for a long time there existed exclusively in France a particular kind of
proof called—The Judicial Congress. In the old jurisprudence of that
country but little value was attached to moral proofs; all was made to
depend upon material ones, which were made by witnesses. The whole
enquiry after truth was made to depend upon the establishment of the fact,
and, too frequently, the administrators of the law were not over-scrupulous
as to the nature of the testimony by which it was to be proved. Provided
there were such testimony, no matter of whatever kind, no matter how
contradictory to common sense, justice pronounced itself satisfied, for,
relying upon this testimony it was enabled to pronounce its decision, and
this was all it required. Hence all those personal examinations of litigants,
so often practised formerly, and hence the judge, whatever might be the
nature of the suit or complaint, ordered a report to be made by parties
chosen to that effect, and who were called experts or examiners. This mode
of procedure was employed in cases in which a woman applied for a
divorce from her husband on the ground of impotency: hence arose the
Congrés, in which the justice of the application was to be proved in the
presence of examiners appointed to give in a report upon the case to the
court. "Ce qui est encore plus honteux," says a writer of the 17th century,
"c'est qu'un quelques procés, les hommes ont visité la femme, et au
contraire, les femmes ont été admises à visiter l'homme, qui a été cause
d'une grande irrison et moquerie, que telles procédures ont servi de contes
joyeux et plaisans discours en beaucoup d'endroits."68 The whole was a
most disgusting procedure, which, although greatly abused, was for a long
time encouraged as offering a legal mode of dissolving a marriage which
was incompatible with the happiness of both the parties, but which the law
declared to be indissoluble. The judges who introduced or maintained the
Congress, who, in fact, protected it, only contemplated it, but certainly most
erroneously as a proper means of legalizing divorces.

All historians, and other writers who have treated of this disgraceful
institution, pretty generally agree in giving it an origin not further back than
the commencement of the 16th century; it is, however, but the extension of
a custom almost as obscene which prevailed in the first ages of Christianity.
This was nothing less than the subjecting a young girl, whether nun or
otherwise, accused of fornication, to a rigorous personal examination,
whence was to result the proof of her innocence or guilt. Siagrius, Bishop of
Verona, and who lived towards the close of the fourth century, condemned a
nun to undergo this disgusting and insulting examination. St. Ambroise, his
metropolitan, disapproved of the Bishop's sentence, declared the
examination as indecent, thus attesting its existence. The opinion, however
of this prelate, supposed as it was by that of several others, did not prevent
the continuance of this custom for a very long time. The ecclesiastical and
civil tribunals frequently directed this proof to be made; and Venette69 cites
the procès-verbal of a similar examination made by order of the Mayor of
Paris in 1672, in the case of a woman who complained of violence
committed on her by a man of dissolute habits.
We prefer giving the following curious description of the manner of
conducting the Congress in the original quaint and antiquated French:

"La forme duquel Congrez est, qui le iour et heure prins, et les Expers connenus ou nommez (qui
sont ordinairement ceux mêmes qui ont fait la visitation lesquels partant n'ont garde de se contrarier
ny de rapporte que l'homme y a fait l'intromission ayant desia (déjà) rapporté sa partie vierge et non
corrompüe) le juge prend le serment des parties, qu'elles tascheront de bonne foy et sans
dissimulation d'accōplir l'œuvre de mariage sans y apporter empeschement de part ny d'autre: des
Expers qu'ils ferōt fidelle rapport de ce qui se passera au Congrez; cela fait les parties et les expers se
retirent en une chābre pour ce préparée, où l'homme et la femme sont de rechef visités, l'homme, afin
de sçavoir s'il a point de mal, s'en estans trouué à aucuns l'ayans gaigné depuis avoir esté visité qui
n'ont laissé d'estre séparés encore, qu'il parust assez par là qu'ils n'estoient impuissans, la femme pour
considérer l'estat de se partie honteuse et, par ce moyen cognoistre la difference de son ouverture et
dilatation, auant et après le Congrez, et si l'intromission y aura esté faicte, ou non: sans, toutefois,
parler en leur rapport de la virginité ou corruption de la femme, reputée vierge, ayant vne fois esté
rapportée telle, sans qu'on la visite plus pour cela. En quelques procès (comme en celuy de Bray,
1578) les parties sont visités nues depuis le sommet de la teste iusques à la plante des pieds, en toutes
les parties des leurs corps, etiam in podice, pour sçavior s'il n y a rien sur elles qui puissent auancer
ou empescher le congrez, les parties honteuses de l'homme lavées d'eau tiéde (c'est a sçavoir à quelle
fin) et la femme mise en demy bain, où elle demeure quelque temps. Cela fait, l'homme et la femme
se couchent en plein iour en un lict, Expers présens, qui demeurent en la chambre, ou se retirent (si
les parties le requièrent on l'vne d'elles, en quelque garde-robe ou gallerie prochaine, l'huis (la porte)
entreouvert toutefois, et quand aux matrones se tiennent proche du lict, et les rideaux estant tirez,
c'est à l'homme à se mettre en devoir de faire preuve de sa puissance habitant charnellement avec sa
partie et faisant intromission: ou souvent aduiennent des altercations honteuses et ridicules, l'homme
se plaignant que sa partie ne le veut laisser faire et empesche l'intromission; elle le niant et disant
qu'il veut mettre le doigt et la dilater, et ouvrir par ce moyen; de sorte qu'il faudroit qu'un homme fust
sans appréhension et pire qu'aucunes bêstes, ou que mentula velut digito uteretur, s'il ne desbandsit
cependant au cas qu'il fust en estat, et si nō obstant ces indignitez il passait autre iusques à faire
intromission; encore ne sçauroit il, quelque érection qu'il face (fasse), si la partie veut l'empescher si
on ne lui tenoit les mains et les genoux ce qui ne se fait pas. En fin, les parties ayās esté quelque tēps
au lict, comme une heure ou deux, les Espers appellex, ou de leur propre mouvement, quand ils
s'ennuyent en ayant de subject, si sint viri, s'approchent, et ouvrans les rideaux, s'informent de ce qui
s'est passé entre elles, et visitent la femme derechef, pour sçavoir si elle est plus ouverte et dilatée
que lorsqu' elle s'est mise au lict, et si intromission a été faicte aussi, an facta sit emission, ubi, quid
et quale emissio. Ce qui ne se fait pas sans bougie et lunettes à gens qui s'en seruent pour leur vieil
age, ni sans des recherches fort sales et odieuses: et font leur procès verbal de ce qui s'est passé au
Congrez (ou pour mieux dire) de ce qu'ils veulent, qu'ils baillent au juge, estant au mesme logis vne
salle, ou chambre à part, avec les procureurs et patriciens, en cour d'Eglise, attendant la fin de cet
acte lequel rapporte est tousiours (toujours) au desaduantage des hommes à faute d'auoir fait
intromission, sans laquelle, l'érection etiam sufficiens ad coeundem, ny l'émission n'empeschent la
séparation, comme il se voit par les procès verbaux des Congrez de De Bray des onziesme et vingt
unsiesme d'Apuril, 1578. Auxquels Congrez, principalement au premier, il fit érection rapportée
suffisante ad copulem carnalem, et emisit extra vas, sed non intromisit, et pour cela fut séparé;
laquelle intromission ne peust aussi estre faite au Congrez par quelque homme que ce fut, si la
femme n'y preste consentement, et empesche, comme il est tout notaire.

The first judicial sentence which ordered a Congress is said to have been
caused by the shameless effrontery of a young man who, being accused of
impotency, demanded permission to exhibit proof of his powers before
witnesses, which demand being complied with, the practice was introduced
into the jurisprudence of the country. But, as we have already shown, the

custom of the Judicial Congress may be referred to a far earlier period, in
fact, to the remotest times of the middle ages, and that it originated with the
Church, when the public morals were far from being well ascertained, as is
proved by many well-known privileges belonging to the Seigneur or Lord
of the Manor. Pope Gregory the Great, who was raised to the Pontificate in
590, appears to have been the first who conferred upon bishops the right of
deciding this description of questions. It was, doubtless, from
considerations of tender regard for female modesty that the Church took
upon itself the painful duty of investigating and deciding upon questions of
this nature. Numerous instances prove this, especially the dissolution of the
marriage of Alphonso VI. of Portugal and his Consort, pronounced in 1688,
and mentioned by Bayle.70 The great antiquity of this custom is proved by
the 17th Art. of the Capitulars of Pepin, in the year 752, which bears a
direct allusion to it: inasmuch as that article established as a principle that
the impotency of a husband should be considered as a lawful cause for
divorce, and that the proof of such impotency should be given, and the fact
verified at the foot of the Cross—exeant ad crucem, et si verum fuerit,
separantur.
That the Congress originated with the Church, who considered it as an
efficacious means for deciding questions of impotency, is still further
proved by the President Boutrier and by other writers, who assert that the
ecclesiastical judges of other times were alone empowered (to the exclusion
of all secular ones) to take cognizance of cases of impotency.
It is well attested that during the 16th and 17th centuries all the courts of
law in France held the opinion that a marriage be anulled on the demand of
a wife who claimed the Congress.
The fatal blow to this disgusting custom was given by a decree of the
Parliament of Paris, under the presidency of the celebrated Lamoignon,
dated Feb. 18, 1677, which decree forbids the practice by any other court
whatsoever, ecclesiastical or civil. It is supposed that the ridicule cast upon
it by the following lines of Boileau had no small share in causing its
suppression.
"Jamais la biche en rut, n'a pour fait d'impuissance
Trainé du fond des bois, un cerf à l'audience;
Et jamais juge, entre eux ordonnant le congrès,

De ce burlesque mot n'a sali ses arrêts."71

Three causes were alleged for the abolition of the Congress—its obscenity,
its inutility, and its inconveniences. Its obscenity; for what could be more
infamous, more contrary to public decency and to the reverence due to an
oath than the impurity of the proof, both in its preparation and execution?
Its inutility; for what could be less certain and more defective? Can it be,
for one moment, imagined that a conjunction ordered by judges between
two persons embittered by a law-suit, agitated with hate and fury against
each other, can operate in them? Experience has shown that, of ten men the
most vigorous and powerful, hardly one was found that came out of this
shameful combat with success; it is equally certain that he who had unjustly
suffered dissolution of his marriage, for not having given a proof of his
capacity in the infamous Congress, had given real and authentic evidences
of it in a subsequent marriage. This degrading mode of proof, in short, far
from discovering the truth, was but the cause and foundation for impotence
and falsehood. Its inconveniences; these are—the declared nullity of a
legitimate marriage—the dishonour cast upon the husband, and the unjust
damages, oftentimes exorbitant, which he is condemned to pay—two
marriages contracted upon the dissolution of the first—both of which,
according to purity and strictness, are equally unlawful—the error or the
malice discovered, ex post facto, and, nevertheless, by the authority of the
law, became irreparable.
It was in the power of the magistrate, upon a complaint of impotency being
alleged by a wife against her husband, to order examiners to make an
inspection of the husband's parts of generation, and upon their report to
decide whether there was just cause for a divorce; and this without
proceeding to order the congress. The following are a few cases of this
description, and are extracted from the reports and judgments of the
Officialty at Paris in cases of impotency.
Case I. Jean de But, master fringe maker, was, in 1675, charged with
impotency by Genevieve Helena Marcault, his wife; he being inspected by
Renauolot, a physician, and Le Bel, a surgeon, by order of the official; they
declared that, after a due and thorough examination of all the members and
parts of the said De But, as well genital, as others which might throw a light
upon the case and likewise his condition of body, his age, the just

conformation and proportion of his limbs, but especially his penis, which
was found to be of as proper a thickness, length and colour as could be
wished: and likewise his testicles, which exhibited no perceptible
viciousness or malformation, they are of opinion that from all these outward
marks, which are the only ones they consider themselves justified in
judging from, the said De But is capacitated to perform the matrimonial act.
Signed by them at Paris, July 18, 1675, and attested by the Sieur de
Combes. And on August 23, 1675, by the sentence of M. Benjamin, official,
the said Marcault was non-suited and ordered to return to her husband and
cohabit with him.
Case II. Inspection having been ordered by the official of Paris of the body
of Joseph Le Page, who is taxed with impotency by Nicola de Loris, his
wife, the said inspection was made by Deuxivoi and De Farci, physicians,
and Paris and Du Fertre, surgeons; their report is as follows:—
"We have found the exterior of his person to be like that of other men's, the
penis of a good conformation and naturally situated, with the nut or glans
bare, its adjoining parts fringed with soft, fine hair, the scrotum of an
unexceptional thickness and extent, and in it vessels of good conformation
and size, but terminating unequally; on the right side, they end in a small,
flabby substance instead of a true testicle; and on the left side we observed
a testicle fixed to the extremity of one of the vessels, as usual, invested in
its tunicle, which left testicle we do not find to be at all flabby, but of a
middling size: upon the whole, we are of opinion that the said Le Page is
capable of the conjugal act but in a feeble manner. Signed and dated March
5, 1684. By the sentence of M. Cheron, the official, the said De Loris's
petition is rejected, and she is enjoined to return to her husband.
Case III. Peter Damour being accused of impotency by his wife Louisa
Tillot an inspection was ordered to be made by Rainset and Afforti,
physicians, and Franchet and Colignon, surgeons. They report as follows:
—"We have proceeded to inspect Peter Damour, master saddler at Paris,
and having attententively examined his parts of generation, we have found
them well constituted and in good condition as to their size, conformation
and situation for the conjugal act; according, however to the statement of
the said Damour himself, the erection is imperfect, the penis not being
sufficiently rigid for perforating the vagina; admitting this, however, to be

the case, we are of opinion that the imperfection may be remedied, repaired,
and rectified, in time, by proper remedies. Signed January 16, 1703. In
consequence the official, M. Vivant, refused Villot's demand, and ordered
her to go home to her husband and cohabit with him as her lawful spouse.
Case IV. In the suit of Demoiselle Maris Louise Buchères accusing of
impotence Antoine de Bret, an inspection was ordered and performed by
Venage and Lita, physicians, Lombard and Delon, surgeons. They reported
as follows: "We find the string of the foreskin shorter than it should be for
giving the nut free scope to extend itself when turgid:—that the body of the
left testicle is very diminutive and decayed, its tunicle separated, the
spermatic vessels very much disordered by crooked swollen veins—that the
right testicle is not of a due thickness, though thicker than the other: that it
is somewhat withered and the spermatic vessels disordered by crooked
swollen veins. On all which accounts we do not think that the natural parts
of the said Sieur de Bret have all the disposition requisite for the well
performing the functions they were designed for; yet we cannot say that he
is impotent until we have inspected the wife. Paris July 11, 1703, Signed.
On the 22d of July, 1703, the wife was inspected by the said physicians and
surgeons and by two matrons; the result of which was that they observed no
visciousness of conformation in her womb: the valvula were circular and
the carunclæ myrtiformes, placed in the neck of the vagina, were soft,
supple, flexible, entire, and did not seem to have suffered any violence or
displacing, and the cavity of the womb-pipe was free and without any
obstacle. Therefore they are of opinion that she is not capable of the
conjugal act, and that there has been no intromission, consequently that she
is a virgin, and that if the marriage had not been consummated, it is her
husband's fault, because of his great debility and defective conformation of
his parts of generation. Another inspection of the same parties was ordered
Aug. 1, 1703. Bourges and Thuillier being the physicians, and Tranchet and
Meri the surgeons, who declared that after due and careful examination they
had found no defect which could hinder generation. Their report is dated
Paris, Aug. 13, 1703. M. Chapelier ordered, in consequence, both parties,—
viz., the Sieur De Bret and the said Buchères to acknowledge each other for
man and wife.
Case V. On the 2nd April, 1653, the Chevalier René de Cordovan, Marquis
de Langey, aged 25 years, married Maria de Saint Simon de Courtomer

between 13 and 14 years of age. The parties lived very happily for the first
four years, that is to say, up to 1657, when the lady accused her husband of
impotency. The complaint was heard before the Lieutenant Civil of the
Chatelet, who appointed a jury to examine the parties. The examination was
made, and the report declared that both parties were duly and fully qualified
for performing the conjugal act. In order to invalidate this report the lady
affirmed that if she was not a virgin it was in consequence of the brutal
efforts of one whose impotency rendered him callous as to the means he
employed to satisfy himself. The Chevalier de Langey, much incensed at
this imputation, demanded the Congress; the judge granted the petition, the
wife appealed from the sentence, but it was confirmed by the superior
courts.
For carrying the sentence into effect, the house of a person named Turpin,
who kept baths, was chosen. Four physicians, five surgeons and five
matrons were present. It is impossible to enter into the details of this
disgusting prequisition; they are given in full detail in the procès verbal.
Suffice it to say that the event being unfavourable to the chevalier, his
marriage was declared void by a decree of the 8th of February, 1659.
By this decree the chevalier was not only condemned to pay back the dowry
which he had had with his wife, but was prohibited from contracting
another marriage—the lady, on the contrary, was allowed to enter into any
other engagement she might think fit, as being considered entirely freed
from her former bonds.
The next day after this decree the chevalier made his protest against it
before two notaries, declaring that he did not acknowledge himself to be
impotent, and that he would, in defiance of the prohibition imposed upon
him, enter into wedlock again whenever he pleased.
The lady St. Simon contracted a marriage with Peter de Caumont, Marquis
de Boèsle, and from this marriage were born three daughters. At the same
time the Chevalier de Langley married Diana de Montault de Navaille, and
their marriage was followed by the birth of seven children.
In 1670 the Marchioness de Boèsle, the ci-devant Countess de Langey,
died.

It was in consequence of the ulterior proceedings in the law courts
respecting the real paternity of the children of the marchioness that the
government availed itself of the opportunity of abolishing, as we have seen,
the useless and obscene ordeal of the congress.
We shall conclude the present Essay by transcribing Dr. Willick's judicious
observations upon the sexual intercourse.
Of the Sexual Intercourse in particular; its physical consequences with
respect to the Constitution of the Individual; under what circumstances it
may be either conducive or detrimental to Health.
"A subject of such extensive importance, both to our physical and moral
welfare, as the consequences resulting from either a too limited or
extravagant intercourse between the sexes deserves the strictest enquiry, and
the most serious attention of the philosopher.
The inclination to this intercourse, and the evacuation connected with it, are
no less inherent in human nature than other bodily functions. Yet, as the
semen is the most subtle and spirituous part of the human frame, and as it
contributes to the support of the nerves, this evacuation is by no means
absolutely necessary; and it is besides attended with circumstances not
common to any other. The emission of semen enfeebles the body more than
the loss of twenty times the same quantity of blood; more than violent
cathartics, emetics, &c.; hence excesses of this nature produce a debilitating
effect on the whole nervous system, on both body and mind.
It is founded on the observations of the ablest physiologists, that the
greatest part of this refined fluid is re-absorbed and mixed with the blood,
of which it constitutes the most rarified and volatile part; and that it imparts
to the body singular sprightliness, vivacity, and vigour. These beneficial
effects cannot be expected if the semen be wantonly and improvidently
wasted. Besides the emission of it is accompanied with a peculiar species of
tension and convulsion of the whole frame, which is always succeeded by
relaxation. For the same reason, even libidinous thoughts, without any loss
of semen, are debilitating, though in a less degree, by occasioning a
propulsion of blood to the genitals.

If this evacuation, however, took place only in a state of superfluity, and
within proper bounds, it is not detrimental to health. Nature, indeed,
spontaneously effects it in the most healthy individuals during sleep; and as
long as we observe no difference in bodily and mental energy after such
losses, there is no danger to be apprehended from them. It is well
established and attested by the experience of eminent physicians, that
certain indispositions, especially those of hypochondriasis and complete
melancholy and incurable by any other means, have been happily removed
in persons of both sexes, by exchanging a single state for wedlock.
There are a variety of circumstances by which the physical propriety of the
sexual intercourse is in general to be determined. It is conductive to the well
being of the individual, if the laws of nature and society (not an extravagant
or disordered imagination) induce man to satisfy this inclination, especially
under the following conditions:
1. In young persons, that is, adults, or those of a middle age; as from the
flexibility of their vessels, the strength of their muscles, and the
abundance of their vital spirits, they can more easily sustain the loss
thence occasioned.
2. In robust persons, who lose no more than is speedily replaced.
3. In sprightly individuals, and such as are particularly addicted to pleasure;
for the stronger the natural and legal desire, the less hurtful is its
gratification.
4. In married persons who are accustomed to it; for nature pursues a
different path, according as she is habituated to the reabsorption or the
evacuation of this fluid.
5. With a beloved object; as the power animating the nerves and muscular
fibres is in proportion to the pleasure received.
6. After a sound sleep, because then the body is more energetic; it is
provided with a new stock of vital spirit, and the fluids are duly prepared;
—hence the early morning appears to be61 designed by nature for the
exercise of this function; as the body is then most vigorous, and being
unemployed in any other pursuit, its natural propensity to this is the
greater; besides, at this time a few hours sleep will, in a considerable
degree restore the expended powers.
7. With an empty stomach; for the office of digestion, so material to the
attainment of bodily vigour, is then uninterrupted. Lastly.

8. In the vernal months; as nature at this season in particular, incites all the
lower animals to sexual intercourse, as we are then most energetic and
sprightly; and as the spring is not only the safest, but likewise the most
proper time with respect to the consequences resulting from that
intercourse. It is well ascertained by experience that children begotten in
spring are of more solid fibres, and consequently more vigorous and
robust, than those generated in the heat of summer or cold of winter.
It may be collected from the following circumstances, whether or not the
gratification of the sexual intercourse has been conducive to the well-being
of the body; namely, if it be not succeeded by a peculiar lassitude; if the
body do not feel heavy, and the mind averse to reflection, these are
favourable symptoms, indicating that the various powers have sustained no
essential loss, and that superfluous matter only has been evacuated.
Farther, the healthy appearance of the urine in this case, as well as
cheerfulness and vivacity of mind, also prove a proper action of the fluids,
and sufficiently evince an unimpaired state of the animal functions, a due
perspiration, and a free circulation of the blood.
There are times, however, in which the gratification is the more pernicious
to health, when it has been immoderate, and without the impulse of nature,
but particularly in the following situations.
1. In all debilitated persons; as they do not possess sufficient vital spirits,
and their strength after this venerating emission is consequently much
exhausted. Their digestion necessarily suffers, perspiration is checked,
and the body becomes languid and heavy.
2. In the aged; whose vital heat is diminished, whose frame is enfeebled by
the most moderate enjoyment, and whose vigour, already reduced, suffers
a still greater diminution from every loss that is accompanied with a
violent convulsion of the whole body.
3. In persons not arrived at the age of maturity; by an easy intercourse with
the other sex, they become enervated and emaciated, and inevitably
shorten their lives.
4. In dry, choleric and thin persons; these, even at a mature age, should
seldom indulge in this passion, as their bodies are already in want of
moisture and pliability, both of which are much diminished by the sexual

intercourse, while the bile is violently agitated, to the great injury of the
whole animal frame. Lean persons generally are of a hot temperament;
and the more heat there is in the body the greater will be the subsequent
dryness. Hence, likewise, to persons in a state of intoxication, this
intercourse is extremely pernicious; because in such a state the increased
circulation of the blood towards the head may be attended with
dangerous consequences, such as bursting of blood-vessels, apoplexy,
etc. The plethoric are particularly exposed to these dangers.
63 5. Immediately after meals; as the powers requisite to the digestion of
food are thus diverted, consequently the aliment remains too long
unassimilated, and becomes burdensome to the stomach.
6. After violent exercise; in which case it is still more hurtful than in the
preceding, where muscular strength was not consumed, but only required
to the aid of another function. After bodily fatigue, on the contrary, the
necessary energy is in a manner exhausted, so that every additional
exertion of the body must be peculiarly injurious.
7. In the best of summer it is less to be indulged in than in spring and
autumn; because the process of concoction and assimilation is effected
less vigorously in summer than in the other seasons, and consequently
the losses sustained are not so easily recovered. For a similar reason the
sexual commerce is more debilitating, and the capacity for it sooner
extinguished in hot than in temperate climates. The same remark is
applicable to very warm temperature combined with moisture, which is
extremely apt to debilitate the solid part. Hence hatters, dyers, bakers,
brewers, and all those exposed to steam, generally have relaxed fibres.
It is an unfavourable symptom if the rest after this intercourse be uneasy,
which plainly indicates that more has been lost than could be repaired by
sleep; but if, at the same time, it be productive of relaxation, so as to affect
the insensible perspiration, it is a still stronger proof that it has been
detrimental to the constitution.72

ESSAY III.

APHRODISIACS, OR, EROTIC STIMULI, AND
THEIR OPPOSITES, AS KNOWN TO, AND USED BY,
THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

When it is considered how strongly the sexual desire is implanted
in man, and how much his self-love is interested in preserving or in
recovering the power of gratifying it, his endeavours to infuse fresh
vigour into his organs when they are temporarily exhausted by over-
indulgence, or debilitated by age cannot appear surprising.
This remark particularly applied to natives of southern and eastern climes,
with whom the erotic ardour makes itself more intensely felt; since it is
there that man's imagination, as burning as the sky beneath which he first
drew breath, re-awakens desires his organs may have long lost the power of
satisfying, and consequently it is there more especially that,
notwithstanding the continual disappointment of his hopes, he still
pertinaciously persists in searching for means whereby to stimulate his
appetite for sexual delights. Accordingly it will be found that in the
remotest ages, even the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms have been
ransacked for the purpose of discovering remedies capable of strengthening
the genital apparatus, and exciting it to action.
But however eager men might be in the above enquiry, their helpmates were
equally desirous of finding a means whereby they might escape the
reproach of barrenness,—a reproach than which none was more dreaded by
eastern women. Such means was at last discovered, or supposed to be so, in
the mandrake,73 a plant which thenceforth became, as the following
quotation proves, of inestimable value in female eyes.
"And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in
the field, and brought them unto his mother, Leah. Then Rachel said to
Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.
"And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my
husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And
Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to-night for thy son's
mandrakes.

"And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet
him, and said, Thou must come in unto me, for surely I have hired thee with
my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.
"And God harkened unto Leah, and she conceived and bare Jacob the fifth
son."74
There is only one other passage in the Bible in which this plant is alluded
to, and that is in Solomon's song:
"The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant
fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved."75
All that can be gathered from the former of the above quotations is that
these plants were found in the fields during the wheat harvests and that,
either for their rarity, flavour, or, more probably, for their supposed quality
of removing barrenness in women, as well as for the stimulating powers
attributed to them, were greatly valued by the female sex. In the quotation
from Solomon's Song, the Hebrew word Dudaim expresses some fruit or
flowers exhaling a sweet and agreeable odour, and which were in great
request among the male sex.76
According to Calmet, the word Dudaim may be properly deduced from
Dudim (pleasures of love); and the translators of the Septuagint and the
Vulgate render it by words equivalent to the English one—mandrake. The
word Dudaim is rendered in our authorized version by the word mandrake
—a translation sanctioned by the Septuagint, which, in this place, translates
Dudaim by μῆλα μανδραγορῶν, mandrake—apples, and in Solomon's Song
by οἱ μανδραγὸραι (mandrakes). With this, Onkelos77 and the Syrian
version agree; and this concurrence of authorities, with the fact that the
mandrake (atropa mandragora) combines in itself all the circumstances and
traditions required for the Dudaim, has given to the current interpretation,
its present prevalence.
Pythagoras was the first (followed by Plutarch) who gave to this plant the
name of ἀνθρωπομορφος (man-likeness), an appellation which became very
generally used; but why he gave it is not precisely known: Calmet,
however, suggests as a reason the partial resemblance it bears to the human

form, from the circumstance of its root being parted from the middle,
downwards.
The opinion respecting the peculiar property of the mandrake was not
confined to the Jews, but was also entertained by the Greeks and Romans,
the former of whom called its fruit—love-apples, and bestowed the name of
Mandragorilis upon Venus. Dioscorides knew it by that of Μανδραγορας,
and remarks that the root is supposed to be used in philters or love-
potions;78 and another writer lauds it as exciting the amorous propensity,
remedying female sterility, facilitating conception and prolificness, adding
the singular fact that female elephants, after eating its leaves, are seized
with so irresistible a desire for copulation, as to run eagerly, in every
direction, in quest of the male.79
Speaking of the plant Eryngium, the elder Pliny says: "The whole variety of
the Eryngium known in our (the Latin) language as the centum capita has
some marvellous facts recorded of it. It is said to bear a striking likeness to
the organs of generation of either sex; it is rarely met with, but if a root
resembling the male organ of the human species be found by a man, it will
ensure him woman's love; hence it is that Phaon, the Lesbian, was so
passionately beloved of Sappho."80 If it be true, as is asserted by medical
writers, that the above root contains an essential oil of peculiarly
stimulating qualities, the fact would account, not only for Sappho's passion
for Phaon, but also for the high value set upon it by the rival wives of
Jacob.
For the same reason as that suggested by Calmet, Columella calls the
mandrake semihomo:
"Quamvis semihominis vesano gramine fœta
Mandragoræ pariat flores."81

"Let it not vex thee if thy teeming field
The half-man Mandrake's madd'ning seed should yield;"

and qualifies its seed by the epithet vesanus, because in his time (the first
century after Christ) it was still supposed to form one of the ingredients of
philters or love-potions. The superstitious ideas attached to the mandrake
were indeed so current throughout Europe during the middle ages, that one
of the accusations brought against the Knights Templars was that of

adoring, in Palestine, an idol to which was given the name of
Mandragora.82 Even, comparatively, not very long ago, there might be seen
in many of the continental towns quacks and mountebanks exhibiting little
rudely-carved figures, which they declared to be genuine mandrakes,
assuring their gaping auditors, at the same time, that they were produced
from the urine of a gibbeted thief, and seriously warning those who might
have to pull any out of the ground to stop their ears first, for otherwise the
piercing shrieks of these plants would infallibly strike them with deafness.
Wier thus describes the manufacture of these interesting little gentlemen:
"Impostors carve upon these plants while yet green the male and female
forms, inserting millet or barley seeds in such parts as they desire the
likeness of human hair to grow on; then, digging a hole in the ground, they
place the said plants therein, covering them with sand till such time as the
little seeds have stricken root, which, it is said, would be perfectly effected
within twenty days at furthest. After this, disinterring the plants, these
impostors, with a sharp cutting knife, so dexterously carve, pare, and slip
the little filaments of the seeds as to make them resemble the hair which
grows upon the various parts of the human body."83
"I have seen," says the Abbé Rosier, "mandrakes tolerably well representing
the male and female parts of generation, a resemblance which they owe,
almost entirely, to manual dexterity. For the intended object, a mandrake is
chosen having a strong root, which, at the end of a few inches, bifurcates
into two branches. As the root is soft, it easily takes the desired form, which
it preserves on becoming dry."84 The author then describes the process of
producing the resemblance of human hair, and which is similar to that given
above.
In the year 1429, a Cordelier by name Brother Richard, fulminated from the
pulpit a vigorous sermon against the amulette then much in vogue, and
called "Mandragora." He convinced his auditors, both male and female, of
its impiety and inutility, and caused hundreds of those pretended charms
which, upon that occasion, were voluntarily delivered up to him, to be
publicly burnt. It is no doubt, to these mandragoras that an old chronicler
alludes in the following strophe:
J'ai puis vu soudre en France
Par grant dérision,
La racine et la branche

De toute abusion.
Chef de l'orgueil du monde
Et de lubricité;
Femme où tel mal habonde
Rend povre utilité.85

In the 15th century the mandrake enjoyed in Italy so great a reputation as an
erotic stimulant, that the celebrated Macchiavelli wrote a much admired
comedy upon it, called "La Mandragora." The subject of this piece,
according to Voltaire, who asserts "qu'il vaut, peut être mieux que toutes les
pièces d'Aristophane, est un jeune homme adroit qui veut coucher avec la
femme de son voisin. Il engage, avec de l'argent, un moine, un Fa tutto ou
un Fa molto, à séduire sa maitresse et à faire tomber son mari dans un piège
ridicule. On se moque tout le long de la pièce, de la religion que toute
l'Europe professe, dont Rome est le centre et dont le siège papal est le
trone."86
Callimaco, one of the dramatis-personæ of this comedy, thus eulogizes the
plant in question, "Voi avete a intendere che non è cosa più certa a
ingravidare, d'una pozione fatta di Mandragola. Questa è una cosi
sperimentata da me due para di volte, e se non era questa, la Reina di
Francia sarebbe sterile, ed infinite altre principesse in quello Stato."87
"You must know that nothing is so sure to make women conceive, as a
draught composed of Mandragola. That is a fact which I have verified upon
four occasions, and had it not been for the virtues of this plant, the queen of
France, as well as many noble ladies of that kingdom, would have proved
barren."
By the Venetian law the administering of love-potions was accounted highly
criminal. Thus the law "Dei maleficii et herbarie." Cap. XVI. of the code,
entitled "Della Commissione del maleficio" says, Statuimo etiamdio che se
alcun homo o femina harra fatto maleficii, iguali so dimandono
volgarmente amatorie, o veramente alcuni altri maleficii, che alcun homo o
femina se havesson in odio, sia frusta et bollade, et che hara consigliato,
patisca simile pena."88
The notion of the efficacy of love powders was also so prevalent in the 15th
century in our own country that in the Parliament summoned by King
Richard III., on his usurping the throne, it was publicly urged as a charge

against Lady Grey, that she had bewitched King Edward IV. by strange
potions and amorous charms.
"And here also we considered how that the said pretended marriage betwixt
the abovenamed King Edward and Elizabeth Grey, was made of great
presumption, without the knowing and assent of the Lords of this land, and
also by sorcery and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her
mother Jaquet Duchesse of Bedford, as the common opinion of the people
and the public voice and fame is thorow all this land." (From the "Address
of Parliament to the high and mightie Prince Richard, Duke of
Gloucester.")89
Modern writers, as might be expected, have taken a very wide range in their
inquiries as to what kind of plant the Dudaïm really was, some regarding it
as lilies, roses, violets, snowdrops, and jasmine; others, as melons, plantain
fruits, whirtleberries, dwarf brambles, the berries of the physalis or winter
cherry, grapes of some peculiar kinds, or even underground fungi, as
truffles, &c. Many have supposed the word to mean the ingredients,
whatever they might have been, of a charm or love potion, and hence have
recurred to the mandrake, celebrated, as already said, throughout antiquity,
for its supposed virtues, and whose history has been tricked out with all the
traditionary nonsense that might be imagined to confirm that report of such
qualities.

Liebentantz,90 in 1660; the younger Rudbeck,91 in 1733, and Celsius,92 in
1745, have displayed much erudition and research in their inquiries; but the
first of these writers arrived at the conclusion that nothing certain could be
come to on the subject; while the second proposed raspberries as the
Dudaïm; and the third maintained that they were the fruit of the Zizyphus,
the Spina Christi of the disciples of Linnæus.
Maundrell, who travelled in the East in the 17th century, informs us that,
having asked the chief priest of Aleppo what sort of a plant or fruit the
Dudaïm, or (as we translate it) the mandrakes, were which Leah gave to
Rachel for the purchase of her husband's embraces, the holy man replied
"that they were plants of a large leaf bearing a certain sort of fruit, in shape
resembling an apple, growing ripe in harvest, but of an ill savour, and not
wholesome. But the virtue of them was to help conception, being laid under

the genial bed. That the women were wont to apply it at this day, out of an
opinion of its prolific virtue."93
Some writers have supposed the Dudaïm to be neither more nor less than
the truffle. Virey asserts it to be a species of Orchïs; and, indeed,
considering the remarkable conformation of the root of this plant,94 the
slightly spermatic odour of its farinaceous substance, as well as that of the
flowers of another one belonging to the same family, an odour so similar to
the emanations of an animal proverbial for its salaciousness, and to which
its bearded spikes or ears give additional resemblance, the almost
unbounded confidence which the ancients reposed in its aphrodisiacal
virtues cannot appear surprising.
One of the most extraordinary aphrodisiacs upon record is that reported to
have been employed by the Amazons. The "Amazons," says Eustathius,95
"broke either a leg or an arm of the captives they took in battle, and this
they did, not only to prevent their attempts at escape, or their plotting, but
also, and this more especially, to render them more vigorous in the venereal
conflict; for, as they themselves burnt away the right breast of their female
children in order that the right arm might become stronger from receiving
additional nutriment, so they imagined that, similarly, the genital member
would be strengthened by the deprivation of one of the extremities, whether
a leg or an arm. Hence, when reproached by the Scythians with the limping
gait of her slaves, Queen Antianara replied, "ἄριστα χωλὸς οιφεῖ," "the lame
best perform the act of love."
Among the ancient Romans, it was impossible that philters, or love-potions,
should not be introduced amid the general depravity so common in every
class; and hence we meet with frequent allusions to them in their writers.
Thus, the emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate, writing to his friend
Callixines, observes "At enim inquies, Penelopes etiam amor et fides erga
virum tempore cognita est. Et quis, tandem, inquam, in muliere amorem
conjugis sui religioni ac pietati anteponet quam continuò mandragoræ
bibesse judicitur?"96
"But you, Callixines, observe that Penelope's love to her husband was
always thus manifested. To this I answer, who but he that has habitually
drunk Mandragora can prefer in a woman conjugal affection to piety?"

The over excitement caused in the nervous system by such potions
frequently proved fatal. Such, according to Eusebius, was the fate of the
poet Lucretius, who, having been driven to madness by an amatory potion,
and having, during the intervals of his insanity, composed several books,
which were afterwards corrected by Cicero, died by his own hand, in the
44th year of his age.97 It should, however, be remembered that this account
has been questioned by the poet's translator and annotator, the late Mr.
Mason Good, in these words:
"By whom the potion was administered is conjectured only from a passage
in St. Jerome,98 who says that a certain Lucilia killed her husband or her
lover by giving him a philtre, which was intended to secure his love, but the
effect of which was to make him insane. This Lucilia is supposed to have
been the wife or the mistress of Lucretius, but by whom the supposition was
first made, I am not able to discover."99 Suetonius relates the same thing of
Caius Caligula, who although, when he arrived at manhood, endured fatigue
tolerably well, was still occasionally liable to faintness, owing to which he
remained incapable of any effort. He was not insensible to this disorder of
his mind, and sometimes had thoughts of retiring.100 "Creditum," he
continues, "potionatus a Cæsonia uxore, amatorio quodam medicamento,
sed quod furorem verterit."101
"It is thought that his wife Cæsonia administered to him a love-potion,
which threw him into a phrensy." It is in allusion to this that Juvenal writes
"Tamen hoc tolerabile, si non
Et furere incipias, ut avunculus ille Neronis
Cui totam tremuli frontem Cæsonia pulli
Infudit."102

"Some nimbler juice would make him foam and rave,
Like that Cæsonia to her Caius gave,
Who, plucking from the forehead of the foal
The mother's love, infused it in the bowl:
The boiling blood ran hissing through his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains."

These concoctions were publicly sold at Rome, their ingredients consisting
of herbs of various kinds, in the culling and testing of which the shepherds
were often employed. The remora, or sucking-fish, certain bones of the

frog, the astroit, or star-fish, and the hippomanes were also used. Horace
informs us that dried human marrow and liver were also had recourse to:
"Exsucta uti medulla et aridum jecur
Amoris esset poculum."103

That his parch'd marrow might compose,
Together with his liver dried, an amorous dose.

Del Rio104 and Wallick105 assert that to the above were likewise added nail-
parings, sundry metals, reptiles, and the intestines of particular birds and
fishes, and even semen virile and sanguis menstruus.106 During the
concoction of these filthy, disgusting, and abominable compounds, the
Infernal Deities were earnestly invoked.
Of all the above ingredients the most famous was the hippomanes, which,
according to Wier, was a piece of flesh upon the forehead of a young colt,
of a black or brown colour, in size and shape like a fig, which the mare is
said to bite off as soon as she has foaled, the mare forsaking her offspring
when prevented from so doing; hence the hippomanes, which was in reality
nothing more than a caul or part of the omentum attached to the head of the
foal, as it is also sometimes to that of infants, was thought to be particularly
effective in conciliating love, especially when calcined or reduced to
powder, and swallowed in some of the blood of the person beloved. This
superstition is, however, in some degree excusable, if it be considered that,
even in the present day, many persons in our own country firmly believe the
human caul to have the power of saving its possessor from drowning; and
that in the good old times, it was regarded as a visible indication that
Providence had designed the infant so furnished for the service of religion,
such children, whether male or female, being destined, in consequence, for
the cloister.
Virgil thus mentions it as one of the ingredients of the philter that Dido
caused to be made for her previously to her committing suicide:
"Falcibus et messæ ad Lunam quæruntur alienis
Pubentes herbæ, nigri cum lacte veneni.
Quæritur et nascentis equi in fronte revulsus
Et matri præruptus amor."107

"Herbs are brought, by moonlight mow'd
With brazen scythes, big, swol'n with milky juice

Of curious poison, and the fleshy knot
Torn from the forehead of a new foal'd colt
To rob the mother's love."

The following curious account of the wonderful effects of the hippomanes,
and which fully justifies the etymology of that word, is given by Pausanias:
"Among these (offerings) you may behold those of Phormis Menalius....
His gifts in Olympia are two horses and two charioteers, one of which
horses the Ælians assert to have been made by a magician, of brass, into
which metal he had previously infused the hippomanes, and which, in
consequence, possessed the power of exciting in horses a mad desire for
coition. The horse so made by the magician was, both in size and shape,
inferior to many horses which are dedicated within Altis, and was rendered
still more deformed by having no tail. Horses desire connection with this
image not only in spring, but every day throughout the year, for, breaking
their bridles or running away from their drivers, they rush into Altis and
attack the horse in a manner much more furious than if it was the most
beautiful mare, and one they were acquainted with. Their hoofs, indeed, slip
from the side of the image, but nevertheless they never cease neighing
vehemently and leaping furiously on the figure till they are driven off by the
whip or by some other violent means, for till such methods are applied, it is
impossible to disengage them from the brass."108
Many formula for love-potions may be found in the work of Albertus
Magnus, who, among other things, particularly recommends "the brains of a
partridge calcined into powder and swallowed in red wine," a remedy which
is also much insisted upon by Platina, who, in praising the flesh of the
partridge, says, "Perdicis caro bene ac facile concoquitur, multum in se
nutrimenti habet, cerebri vim auget, genituram facilitat ac demortuam
Venerem excitat."109
"The flesh of the partridge, which is of good and easy digestion, is highly
nutritious; it strengthens the brain, facilitates conception, and arouses the
half-extinct desire for venereal pleasures." Mery110 confidently prescribes,
for the same purpose, the partes genitales of a cock prepared and
administered in like manner.

The following compositions enjoyed a vast reputation during the 17th
century:
Fortuna Veneris.—"Take of pismires or ants (the biggest, having a sourish
smell, are the best) two handfuls, spirits of wine one gallon; digeste them in
a glasse vessel, close shut, for the space of a month, in which time they will
be dissolved into a liquor; then distil them in balneo till all be dry. Then put
the same quantity of ants as before; do this three times, then aromatize the
spirit with cinnamon. Note, that upon the spirit will float an oil which must
be separated. This spirit (continues the inventor) is of excellent use to stir
up the animal spirits insomuch that John Casimire, Palsgrave of the Rhine,
and Seyfrie of Collen, general against the Turks, did always drink thereof
when they went to fight, to increase magnanimity and courage, which it did
even to admiration."
"This spirit doth also wonderfully irritate them that are slothful to
venery."111
Aqua Magnanimitatis.—Take of ants or pismires a handful of their eggs
two hundred, of millepedes (wood-lice) two hundred, of bees two hundred
and fifty; digeste them together, the space of a month, then pour off the
clear spirit, and keep it safe. This water or spirit is of the same value as the
former.112
But, quitting these "fond conceits," as honest old Burton113 calls them, and
investigating the subject upon acknowledged and recognised principles, it
will be found that, as the ancient philosophers and naturalists regarded the
semen as the purest and most perfect part of our blood, the flower of our
blood and a portion of the brain, so the sole object of all aphrodisiacal
preparations should be to promote its copious secretion.
Before, however, proceeding to indicate the means most conducive thereto,
it may prove interesting to the reader to be informed what were the opinions
of some of the most celebrated philosophers of antiquity, upon the semen.
"Let us first," says Montaigne,114 know whether, at least, all they
(physicians) agree about the matter whereof men produce one another....
Archesilaus, the physician, whose favourite and disciple Socrates was, said
that men and beasts were formed of a lacteous slime, expressed by the heat

of the earth. Pythagoras says that our seed is the foam or cream of our better
blood. Plato, that it is the distillation of the marrow of the back-bones; and
raises his argument from this: that that part is first sensible of being weary
of the work. Alcmeon, that it is a part of the substance of the brain, and that
it is so, says he, is proved by its causing weakness of the eyes in those who
are over-immoderately addicted to that exercise. Democritus, that it is a
substance extracted from soul and body. Aristotle, an excrement drawn
from the aliment of the last blood which is diffused over all our members;
others, that it is a blood concocted and digested by the heat of the genitals."
But, to return from this digression. Under whatever point of view the semen
verile be considered, whether as containing, according to some physicians,
all the parts of the fœtus, under the name of organic molecules, or as being,
in the opinion of others, merely destined to fecundate the female egg, it will
be equally true that the semen is a fluid impregnated with a vivifying
principle regarded as the most important (validissimum) of our humours, by
Hippocrates, who, in support of this his opinion, adduces the fact of our
becoming debilitated, however small the quantity we may lose of it in the
venereal act.115
Zeno, the father of the Stoic philosophy, called the loss of semen the loss of
part of the animating principle; and that sage's practice was conformable
with his principles, for he is recorded to have embraced his wife but once in
his life, and that out of mere courtesy.
Epicuras and Democritus were nearly of the same opinion as Zeno; and the
Athletæ, that their strength might be unimpaired, never married. The
Rabbis, in their anxiety to preserve their nation, are said to have ordered,
with a view of preventing a loss of vigour, that a peasant should indulge but
once a week, and a merchant but once a month, a sailor but twice a year,
and a studious man but once in two years; and for the same reason, Moses
forbade indulgence before battle.

"Les êtres," says a writer in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales,116
"qui font le plus abus de leurs facultés intellectuelles et sensitives
extérieures, sont les moins capables d'un coït fréquent, tandis que les idiots,
les crétins, l'exercent bien davantage. De même, l'âne, le cochon se livrent
plus stupidement à l'acte de propagation et repandent beaucoup plus de

sperme que des espèces intelligentes; enfin les animaux à petit cerveau, tels
que les poissons, montrent une extrême fécondité."
If now, it be asked what will best promote the secretion of the seminal fluid,
or, in other words, which is the best aphrodisiac, it may be confidently
answered, the use of a substantial nourishment, such as medical men
designate as an analeptic diet. Food of this description, without fatiguing
the gastric organs, furnishes an abundant chyle, from which is elaborated a
rich blood, and in which the secretory organs find materials of an excellent
quality, and in an almost constant proportion with the regular consumption
of their products. All food of easy and quick digestion is an analeptic,
whence it follows that the same substance which is an analeptic to one
person, may prove indigestible and innutritious for another. The numerous
treatises upon digestion render it unnecessary to specify here the different
aliments most proper for convalescents, suffice it to say, generally, that
those meats in which azezome is found are the most nutritious. This animal
principle is that extractive matter of animal fibre which produces the red
appearance of uncooked meat; it is also that which forms what is called the
brown of roasted meats, gives the flavour to broths and soups, the peculiar
smell to boiled meat, and constitutes the much admired gout of game and
venison. It is not found in the flesh of young animals, which is said, with
reason, to be, on that very account, less nutritious. It is only when they have
attained the adult age that it appears in them; it is abundant in beef, mutton,
kid, hare, pigeon, partridge, pheasant, woodcock, quail, duck, goose, and
generally, in all animals having dark coloured flesh. Mushrooms and
oysters also contain some, but in a very small proportion.
Food in which this principle exists appears to impress upon the membrane
of the stomach an increase of activity; the digestion is easy, and from a
small mass of alimentary substance an abundant chyle is obtained. The
chyliferous vessels derive a very great proportion of reparative materials;
there is found but little excrementitious residue, the blood is enriched and
its course accelerated, while the impulsive force of the heart and arteries is
strong and more lively. Under the influence of this regimen a greater
quantity of heat is developed and, in a given time, there is a greater
absorption of oxygen than during a vegetable one; the respiration is
performed more freely, the organs increase in size, but it is then a genuine
embonpoint; nutrition is, in reality, more active, it is not a deceptive

turgidity; the energy of the secretions and exhalations is redoubled,
cutaneous perspiration becomes more abundant, and the glandular apparatus
fulfil their functions with greater facility. A man who adopts this food
becomes consequently very well fitted to make the sacrifices exacted by the
calls of love, to which he is then more frequently solicited.
The mollusca in general, and testaceous animals in particular, have been
considered as endowed with aphrodisiac properties. Juvenal attributes this
quality to oysters which, together with mussles, have in this respect become
vulgarly proverbial.
"Quis enim Venus ebria curat?
Inguinis et capitis quæ sint discrimina nescit
Grandia quæ mediis jam noctibus ostrea mordet."117

"For what cares the drunken dame?
(Take head or tail), to her 'tis much the same
Who at deep midnight on fat oysters sups."

Wallich informs us that the ladies of his time had recourse, on such
occasions, to the brains of the mustela piscis. The Sepia octopus was also in
great repute, and Plautus, in his play of Cisina, introduces an old man who
has just been purchasing some at the market.
Appuleius, the celebrated author of the Metamorphoseon de Asino aureo
(Metamorphoses of the Golden Ass), and who lived in the 2nd century,
under the Antonines, having married a rich widow, was accused by her
father Æmilian, before Claudius Maximus, pro-Consul of Asia, of having
employed sorcery and charms in order to gain her affections (a parallel case
with that of Shakespear's Othello). The love-potions alleged to have been
administered were asserted to be chiefly composed of shell-fish, lobsters,
sea hedge-hogs, spiced oysters, and cuttle-fish, the last of which was
particularly famed for its stimulating qualities. Appuleius fulley exonerated
himself in his admirable Apologia ceu oratio de Magica, so esteemed for
the purity of its style as to have been pronounced by Saint Augustine (De
Civitate Dei, lib. xviii. c. 20) as copiosissima et disertissima oratio. The
reason adduced by Æmilian for believing that Appuleius had chiefly used
fish for the purpose was, that they must necessarily have great efficacy in
exciting women to venery, inasmuch as Venus herself was born of the sea.

Venette118 supports this view when he says:
"Nous avons l'expérience en France que ceux qui ne vivent presque que de
coquillages et de poissons qui ne sont que de l'eau rassemblée, sont plus
ardents à l'amour que les autres, en effet, nous nous y sentons bien plus y
portés en Caresme qu'en tout autre saison parce-qu'en ce temps là nous ne
nous nourrissons que de poissons et d'herbes qui sont des aliments
composés de beaucoup d'eau.
Should this be true, the Infallible (?) Church must have committed an
astounding blunder in thinking to mortify, for six weeks, the sinful lusts and
affections of its dupes, by confining them, for the above period, to the
exclusive use of such articles of food.
There are also some aliments which, although not included in the class of
analeptics, are, nevertheless, reported to possess specific aphrodisiacal
qualities; such are fish, truffles, and chocolate.
The following anecdote relative to this property in fish is related by
Hecquet:119
"Sultan Saladin, wishing to ascertain the extent of the continence of the
dervishes, took two of them into his palace, and, during a certain space of
time, had them fed upon the most succulent food. In a short time all traces
of their self-inflicted severities were effaced, and their embonpoint began to
re-appear.

"In this state he gave them two Odalisques120 of surpassing beauty, but all
whose blandishments and allurements proved ineffectual, for the two holy
men came forth from the ordeal as pure as the diamond of Bejapore.121
"The Sultan still kept them in his palace, and, to celebrate their triumph,
caused them to live upon a diet equally recherché, but consisting entirely of
fish. A few days afterwards they were again subjected to the united powers
of youth and beauty, but this time nature was too strong, and the too happy
cenobites forgot, in the arms of voluptuousness, their vows of continence
and chastity."

This peculiar property in fish has been attributed to the presence of
phosphorus, which is known to exist somewhat plentifully in their
substance, and has also been discovered in their roes in a simple state of
combination. Now, phosphorus is one of the most powerful stimulants: it
acts upon the generative organism in a manner to cause the most violent
priapisms; but this principle does not act alone, and there must also be taken
into account the different seasonings and condiments which form the basis
of most culinary preparations to which fish are subjected, and which are all
taken from the class of irritants.
The prolific virtues of fish have, no doubt, been greatly exaggerated, and it
is certain that too much importance has been given to the observation made
(rather upon slight grounds) by travellers as to the abundant population of
ichthyophagic nations; nor would it be difficult to adduce facts to prove to
the incredulous that the continuous use of fish excites lasciviousness in such
persons only as are constitutionally inclined thereto.
The following instances sufficiently establish the aphrodisiacal qualities of
phosphorus. A drake belonging to a chemist having drunk water out of a
copper vessel which had contained phosphorus, ceased not gallanting his
females till he died. An old man to whom a few drops only of phosphoric
ether had been administered, experienced repeated and imperious venereal
wants which he was compelled to satisfy. Leroy and Battatz, two celebrated
French physicians of the last century, tried the effects of phosphorus upon
themselves, with similar results. Sensations of the same kind are said to be
experienced by persons whose occupation requires the frequent handling of
this drug. It may thus be considered as satisfactorily proved that the above
substance is essentially an energetic stimulant of the genital organs; but,
should still further evidence be required, it may be found in the fact that the
administration of it, even in small doses, has been productive of the most
horrible and fatal results, instances of which are recorded in many medical
works both foreign and English, but more particularly in those of Brera,
Magendie, and others.
The erotic properties of truffles and mushrooms are considered by most
writers as better established than those of fish. The ancient Romans were
well acquainted with truffles, and obtained them from Greece and Africa,
especially from the province of Libya, the fungi found there being

particularly esteemed for their delicacy and flavour. In modern times, also,
the truffle is regarded as the diamond of the kitchen, being highly valued for
its capability of exciting the genesiac sense, it being a positive aphrodisiac
which disposes men to be exacting and women complying.122

The following instance of its effects is given by Brillat Savarin,123 to whom
the circumstances were communicated, in confidence, by the lady who was
the subject of them:
"Je soupai," says she, "un jour chez moi en trio avec mon mari et un de ses
amis dont le nom était V——. C'était un beau garçon et ne manquant pas
d'esprit et venait souvent chez moi, mais il ne m'avait jamais rien dit qui put
le faire regarder comme mon amant, et s'il me fesait la cour, c'était d'une
manière si enveloppée qu'il n'y avait qu'une sotte qui eut pû s'en fâcher. Il
paraissait, ce jour là, destiné á me tenir compagnie pendant le reste de la
soirée, car mon mari avait un rendezvous et devait nous quitter bientôt.
Notre souper avait pour base une petite volaill truffée. Les truffes étaient
délicieuses, et quoique je les aime beaucoup, je me contins, nonobstant; je
ne bus aussi qu'un seul verre de Champagne, ayant quelque pressentiment
que la soirée ne se passerait pas sans évènement. Bientôt mon mari partit et
me laissa seule avec V—— qu'il regardait comme tout à fait sans
conséquence. La conversation roula d'abord sur des sujets indifférents, mais
elle ne tarda pas à prendre une tournure plus sérieuse et plus intéressante. V
—— fut successivement flatteur, expansif, affectueux, caressant, et voyant
que je ne faisais que plaisanter de tant de belles choses, il devint si pressant
que je ne pus plus me tromper de ses prétensions. Alors, je me reveillai
comme d'une songe et me défendis avec autant plus de franchise que mon
cœur ne me disait rien pour lui. Il persistait avec une action que pouvait
devenir tout à fait offensante; j'eus beaucoup de peine de la remener, et
j'avone, à ma honte, que toute espérance ne lui serait pas interdite. Enfin, il
me quitta, j'allai me coucher et dormis tout d'un somme. Mais le lendemain
fut le jour du jugement; j'examinai ma conduite de la veille, et je la trouvai
repréhensible. J'aurais du arreter V—— dès les premières phrases, et ne pas
me prêter à une conversation qui ne présageait rien de bon. Ma fierté aurait
dû sonner, crier, me fâcher, faire, enfin, tout ce que je ne fis pas. Que vous
dirai je, Monsieur, je mis tout cela sur le compte des truffes, et je suis
réelement persuadée qu'elles m'avaient donne une prédisposition
dangereuse, et si je n'y renonce pas (ce qui eut été trop rigoureux) du moins

je n'en mange jamais sans que le plaisir qu'elles me causent ne soit mêlé
d'un peu de défiance."
The mushroom was also equally well known as the truffle to the ancient
Romans for its aphrodisiacal qualities. Thus, Martial says:
"Quum sit anus conjux et sint tibi mortua membra,
Nil aliud bulbis quam sater esse potes."124

"If envious age relax the nuptial knot,
Thy food be mushrooms, and thy feast shalot."

This bulb was believed by the ancients to be so decided a stimulant, that it
was always served up, together with pepper and pine-nuts, at the wedding
dinner.
An immoderate use of chocolate was, in the 17th century, considered so
powerful an aphrodisiac that Jean Franco Raucher strenuously enforced the
necessity of forbidding the monks to drink it, adding that if such an
interdiction had been laid upon it at an earlier period, the scandal with
which that sacred order had been assailed would have been prevented. It is
a singular fact that, fearful of losing their character, or, what, perhaps, was
dearer to them, their chocolate, the worthy cenobites were so diligent in
suppressing Raucher's work that four copies only of it are said to be in
existence.
The history of the middle ages abounds with complaints of the lubricity,
gluttony, and drunkenness of the monks, vices which are described as being
their ruin, in the fallowing pithy distich:
"Sunt tria nigrorum quæ vestant res monachorum,
Renes et venter et pocula sumpta frequenter."125

"Three things to ruin monks combine—
Venery, gluttony, and wine."

A monk who was a great enemy to adultery, was one day preaching against
it, and grew so warm in his argument, and took so much pains to convince
his congregation of his own abhorrence of it, that at last he broke out in the
following solemn declaration:

"Yea, my brethren, I had rather, for the good of my soul, have to do with ten
maids every month, than, in ten years, to touch one married woman!"
The celebrity they acquired in the field of Venus may readily be imagined
from a quatrain that was affixed in a conspicuous part of the Church of St.
Hyacinthe, and which runs thus:
"Femmes qui désirez de devenir enceinte
Addressez cy vos vœux au grand Saint Hyacinthe,
Et tout ce que pour vous le Saint ne pourra faire
Les moines de céans pourront y satisfaire."126
You ladies who for pregnancy do wish
To great St. Hyacinthe your prayers apply,
And what his Saintship cannot accomplish
The monks within will surely satisfy."

It would have been well had these holy men been contented with these,
comparatively, venial indulgences. The following macaronic epigram,
however, shows that they were but too much addicted to the Amour
Socratique:
"Let a friar of some order tecum pernoctare
Either thy wife or thy daughter hic vult violare,
Or thy son he will prefer, sicut fortem fortis,
God give such a friar pain in Inferni portis."127

But the open violation of their monastic vows, especially that of chastity,
sometimes subjected monks to very severe punishment, a singular instance
of which is recorded by Thevet,128 who, on account of the inimitable
quaintness of his language and style, must be allowed to tell his own story:
"Phillippus Bourgoin, grād prieur de l'Abbaye de Cluny, voyant l'insolence,
riblerïes et putasseries que menoient certains religieux de l'abbaye de Cluny
les fist appeller particulièrement, leur demonstra le tort qu'ilz se faisoient et
à la saincteté de leur ordre, et appercevant qu'ilz continuoient leur train, en
pleine voute ou assemblée, qu'ils font en leur chapitre, leur denonça,
pu'estāt en son oratoire Sainct Hugues s'estoit apparu à luy, le chargeant de
leur fair entendre qu'ilz amendassent leur vie, ou autremĕt, qu'ilz
tomberoient en son indignation, les ayant en telle verdeure envoya querir
des maistres opérateurs sécretment en son logis et māda querir une nuict
tous les plus mauvais garçons de Moynes, les uns après les autres, qui
n'estaient plutôt entrez au logis du Prieur qu'ō leur bādoit les yeux, et après

les maistres leurs nettòiét bragardement leurs petites boursettes de ce qui
les faisoit hennir après leurs voluptéz et après les renvoiet en leurs
chambres, plus legiers de deux grains qu'ilz n'etoiét auparavant, les ayant
chappônez. Après telle exécution le bruict courut qu'ō avoit veu Sainct
Hugues se pourmêant près de l'enfermerie de l'abbaye, qui fist croire aux
pauvres Moynes hongres, que par adresse autre qu'humaine, ils avoiêt ainsi
esté estropiez de leur virilité."
To these poor monks may, however, be applied the sly remark of Hume,
upon a similar act of cruelty perpetuated, though for a far more innocent
cause, by Geoffry, the father of Henry II., upon the prior and chapter of
Seez in Normandy, viz., that "of the pain and danger they might justly
complain, yet, since they had vowed chastity, he deprived them of a
superfluous treasure."129
If the properties of ambergris be less potent than those of phosphorus, they
are certainly less fatal. According to Boswell,130 three grains of the former
suffice to produce a marked acceleration of the pulse, a considerable
development of muscular strength, a greater activity in the intellectual
faculties, and a disposition to cheerfulness and venereal desires. The same
author also says that it is a medicine which can, for a short time, restore an
effete old man to juvenility.131 The ancients reposed great confidence in the
virtues of this drug, employing it as a renovator of the vital powers and of
the organs, whose energy had been exhausted by age or by excess; and
throughout the East this perfume still maintains a reputation for life-
preserving qualities.

Madame Du Barry,132 the infamous mistress of Louis XV., is reported to
have availed herself of its aphrodisiacal qualities in order to stimulate the
jaded appetites of her royal paramour. "L'attachement du roi pour Madame
Du Barry133 lui est venu des efforts prodigieux qu'elle lui fit faire au moyen
d'an baptême (lavement) ambré dont elle se parfuma intérieurement tous les
jours. On ajoute qu'elle joignit à cela un secret dont on ne se sert pas encore
en bonne société."
Piquant as is this anecdote, the key to it is equally so. "Les mouches
cantarides, i diabolini l'essence de giroflée, les baptêmes ambrés, etc., sont
des inventions de notre siecle dont la débilité eut été incurable sans ces

secours, l'auteur ne peut rendre le secret de la mauvaise société, dont se sert
la Comtesse, sans blesser la bonne, tout ce qu'il peut dire décemment est
que ce secret est un diminutif des erreurs philosophiques."134
The old pharmacopœia are amply furnished with formula of which amber
constitutes the base. These recipes are generally designated by names
which, to a certain extent, indicate the particular use to which they are
destined by their makers; thus, France formerly boasted her "Tablettes de
Magnanimité," or "Electuaire Satyrion," and "Un poudre de joie." Troches,
or odoriferous lozenges, to which the ancients gave the pretty name of
"Avunculæ Cypriæ," were, and perhaps are still, sold in Paris under that of
"Seraglio Pastilles." Ambergris forms the basis of these, as it also does of
the Indian pastilles called "Cachunde," and which were equally in repute.
Zactus Lusitanus135 states that they were composed of bole Tuccinum,
musk, ambergris, aloes-wood, red and yellow sanders (pterocarpuscarpus
santalinus) mastic, sweet-flag (calamus aromaticus) galanga, cinnamon,
rhubarb, Indian myrobalon, absynth, and of some pounded precious stones,
which, however, impart no additional quality to the composition. Speaking
of this composition, the Encyclopœdia Perthensis describes it as "a
medicine highly celebrated among the Chinese and Indians; it is composed
of ambergris and several other aromatic ingredients, perfumes, medicinal
earths, and precious stones. It imparts a sweetness to the breath, is a
valuable medicine in all nervous complaints, and is esteemed as a prolonger
of life and an exciter to venery.136

Rivière137 gives us the following formula for a potion whose virtue is
indisputable. "Take of amber, half a drachm; musk, two scruples; aloes, one
drachm and a half; pound them all together, pour upon the mass a sufficient
quantity of spirits of wine so that the liquor may cover it to the height of
about five fingers' breadth; expose it to sand heat, filter and distil it, close it
hermetically, and administer it in broth in the dose of three or five drops.
This liquor is also advantageous when mixed with syrup, prepared as
follows:—Take of cinnamon water, four ounces; orange and rose water,
each six ounces, and sugar candy q.s.
Musk taken internally is said by many physicians to be almost equal to
ambergris for its aphrodisiacal qualities. Externally applied, this substance
produces very singular phenomena. Borelli details the case of a man "qui

s'étant frotté le penis avec du musc avant de se livrer à l'exercise des
fonctions genitales, resta uni avec sa femme sans pouvoir s'en séparer. Il
fallait, dans cette position lui donner une quantité de lavements afin de
ramoller les parties qui s'étaient extraordinairement tumifiées."138
Diermerbreek and Schurigius gave similar instances. The effects of musk
are, therefore, almost equal to those produced by certain plants, as recorded
by Theophrastus: "Esse herbas quæ vel ad sexagesimum coitum vim
præstant sed at demum secernitur sanguis."139 Weickard says that by means
of this drug he resuscitated the genital power in a man who had nearly
completed his eightieth year.
But, of all aphrodisiacs, the most certain and terrible in its effects are
cantharides, commonly known as Spanish flies. That they exercise a
powerful and energetic action upon the organization and stimulate, to the
utmost, the venereal desire, is but too true. The effects, however, which
these insects, when applied as a blister upon the skin, are known to produce,
are insignificant when compared with their intense action upon the stomach
when taken internally; nor is it the stomach only which is affected by them:
the bladder experiences an irritation exceeding even that caused by the
severest strangury. To these succeed perforation of the stomach, ulcers
throughout the entire length of the intestinal canal, dysentery, and, lastly,
death in the midst of intolerable agonies. Medical works abound with
observations concerning the fatal effects of cantharides when unduly
administered, whether from ignorance or for exciting the venereal appetite.
The two following cases are recorded by Pabrol in his "Observations
Anatomiques":
"En 1752 nous fumes visiter un pauvre homme d'Organ en Provence atteint
du plus horrible satyriasis qu'on saurait voir et penser. Le fait est tel. Il avait
les quartes, pour en guerir prend conseil d'une sorcière, laquelle lui fait une
potion d'une once de semences d'orties, de deux drachmes de cantharides,
d'une drachme et demi de caboule et autres, ce qui le rendit si furieux à
l'acte vénérien que sa femme nous jura son Dieu, qu'il l'avait chevauchée,
dans deux mois, quatre vingt sept fois, sans y comprendre plus de dix fois
qu'il s'était corrompu lui-même. Dans le temps que nous consultions, le
pauvre homme spermatisa trois fois à notre présence, embrassa le pied du
lit, et agitant contre lui comme si c'eust été sa femme. Ce spectacle nous

étonn et nous hâta à lui faire des remèdes pour abattre cette furieusse
chaleur, mais quel remède qu'on lui eust faire, se passa-t-il le pas."
"Un médecin à Orange, nommé Chauvel avait été appellé en 1758 à
Caderousse, petite ville proche de sa résidence, pour voir un homme atteint
d'une maladie du même genre. A l'entrée de la maison il trouve la femme du
dit malade, laquelle se plaignit à lui de la furieuse lubricité de son mari, qui
l'avait chevauchée quarante fois pour une nuit, et avait toutes les parties
gonflées, étant contrainte les lui montrer afin qu'il lui ordonnast les remèdes
pour abattre l'inflammation. Le mal du mari étant venu d'un breuvage
semblable à l'autre que lui fut donné par une femme qui gardait l'hôpital,
pour guérir la fièvre tierce qui l'affligeoit, de laquelle il tomba dans une
telle fureur qu'il fallait l'attacher comme s'il eust été possédé du diable. Le
vicaire du lieu fut présent, pour l'exhorter à la présence même du Sieur
Chauvel, lesquels il priait le laisser mourir avec le plaisir, les femmes le
plièrent dans un linsseuil mouillé en eau et en vinaigre, où il fut lassé
jusqu'au le lendemain qu'elles allaient le visiter, mais sa furieuse chaleur fut
bien abattue et eteinte, car elles le trouvèrent roid mort, la bouche béante,
montrant les dents, et son membre gangréne."
Paré also relates that a courtezan, having sprinkled the meat given by her to
one of her lovers, with pounded cantharides, the wretched youth was seized
with a violent priapism and loss of blood at the anus, of which he died.
Ferdinand the Catholic, of Castile, owed his death to the effects of a philter
administered to him by his queen, Germaine de Foix, in the hope of
enabling him to beget an heir to the crowns of Aragon, Navarre, and
Naples. "Plusieurs dames," says Mignot,140 "attachées à la Reine, lui
indiquèrent un breuvage qu'il fallait, disoit on donner à Ferdinand pour
ranimer ses forces. Cette princese fit composer ce reméde, sous ses yeux, et
le présenta au roi qui désirait, plus qu'elle, d'avoir un fils. Depuis ce jour, la
santé de Ferdinand s'affaiblit, au point qu'il ne la recouvra jamais."
The life of the celebrated Wallenstein, one of the heroes of the "Thirty
Years' war," was far a long time endangered from the effects of a potion
administered to him by his countess. "De retour dans sa patrie, il
(Wallenstein) sut inspirer une vive passion à une riche veuve de la famille
de Wiezkova, et eut l'adresse de se faire préféré à des rivaux d'un rang plus

élevé; mais cette union fut troublée par l'extrême jalousie de sa femme; ou
prétend même qu'elle fit usage de philtres que pensèrent compromettre le
santé de son mari."141

Cardinal Dubois,142 the favourite and minister of Philip Duke of Orleans,
Regent of France, during the minority of Louis XV., gives the following
amusing account of a love potion, to the powerful effects of which he
considered himself indebted for his existence. "An old bachelor, of Brivas,
had engaged to marry a young lady of only sixteen years of age. The night
before the wedding he assembled the wise heads of his family for the
purpose of consulting upon the best means of enabling him to perform his
part creditably in the approaching amorous conflict. Opinions were divided;
some maintained that nature was adequate to the occasion at any age, while
others recommended a certain preparation in the Pharmacopeia, which
would amply supply the defect of youth in a sexaginary husband. The old
gentleman chose, without hesitation, the surest and speediest of these two
chances of success. The prescription was sent to the shop of my worthy
father, who was an apothecary in the town, and he accordingly immediately
set to work, and made up a draught which would have awakened desire
even in Methusaleh himself. This valuable philter was not to be sent to the
party till the next day. It was late, and my mother," continues the Cardinal,
"desired her husband to retire to rest and he, tired with his day's work,
quickly undressed himself, blew out his candle, and deposited himself, like
a loving husband, by the side of his dear spouse. Awakening in the middle
of the night, he complained of being excessively thirsty, and his better half,
roused from her slumbers, got up in the dark, and groping about for
something wherewith to quench his thirst, her hand encountered the
invigorating philter, which it truly proved to be, for I came into the world
precisely nine months after that memorable night."143
Although love-potions and philters, as well as the other preparations had
recourse to, for animating and arousing the organs for reproduction
frequently owe, as we have shewn, their advantages to cantharides, and are,
but too often productive of terrible effects, yet it cannot be denied that when
administered by a skilful, cautious, and experienced physician, they have
restored the desired vigour when all other means have failed.

The flesh of the Schinck (scincus), an amphibious animal of the lizard
species, and sometimes of the land lizard, or crocodile, is said, when
reduced to powder and drunk with sweet wine, to act miraculously in
exciting the venereal action; it is also prepared for the same object in the
form of the electuary known by the name of Diasatyrion. Ælius
recommends that in order to cause the erection of the virile organ, the flesh
of this animal should be taken from the vicinity of its genital apparatus.144
It is a well known fact that the Egyptian peasants carried their lizards to
Cairo, whence they were forwarded, viâ Alexandria, to Venice and
Marseilles. This species of lizard, which feeds upon aromatic plants, was
also used as an aphrodisiac by the Arabs, and the well known anti-
poisonous quality of its flesh had caused it, in more ancient times, to be
employed as an ingredient in the far-famed Mithridates, or antidote to
poison. Browne informs us145 "that in Africa, no part of the Materia Medica
is so much in requisition as those which stimulate to venereal pleasure. The
Lacerta scincus in powder, and a thousand other articles of the same kind,
are in continual demand." The plant Chervri (sandix ceropolium) is also
accounted as capable of exciting amorous propensities, so much so that
Tiberius, the Roman emperor, the most lascivious, perhaps, of men, is said
to have exacted a certain quantity of it from the Germans, by way of tribute,
for the purpose of rendering himself vigorous with his women and
catamites; and Venette says that the Swedish ladies give it to their husbands
when they find them flag in their matrimonial duties.146
But it was upon the plant called Satyrion (orchis mascula) that those who
required aphrodisiacal remedies rested their most sanguine hopes. This
plant, Theophrastus assures us, possesses so wonderful a property of
exciting venery that a mere application of it to the parts of generation will
enable a man to accomplish the act of love twelve times successively.
Speaking of this plant, Venette147 says that the herb which the Indian King
Androphyl sent to King Antiochus was that it was so efficacious in exciting
men to amorous enjoyment as to surpass in that quality, all other plants, the
Indian who was the bearer of it assuring the king "qu'elle lui avait donné de
la vigueur pour soixante dix embrassements," but he owned "qu'aux
derniers efforts ce qu'il rendait n'était plus de semence."

Matthoile, however, observing that those persons who made use of it did
not appear much given to lasciviousness, concluded that we had lost the
true satyrion of the ancients; but, it is nevertheless certain, notwithstanding
so adverse an opinion, that this plant long preserved its reputation, and was
recommended by all botanists for its aphrodisiac potency. Of all the species
of this plant the one popularly known as dog-stones is reputed to possess
the greatest virtue.
The Turks have also their Satyrion (orchis morio), which grows upon the
mountains near Constantinople, and which they make use of to repair their
strength, and stimulate them to the generative act. From this root is made
the salep of which the inhabitants of Turkey, Persia, and Syria, are
extremely fond, being looked upon as one of the greatest restoratives and
provocatives to venery in the whole vegetable world. But besides the
aphrodisiacal qualities attributed to this plant by the above people, they give
it credit for other ones, which good opinion experience has confirmed, and
therefore whenever they undertake a long voyage, they never omit to carry
it with them as a specific against all diseases. Modern practitioners likewise
commend its restorative, mucilaginous and demulcent qualities as rendering
it of considerable utility, particularly in sea scurvy, diarrhœa, dysentery, and
stone or gravel. In addition to this property, salep also possesses the very
singular one of concealing the taste of sea water, hence to prevent the
dreadful calamity of perishing by thirst at sea it has been proposed that the
powder of this plant should form part of the provisions of every ship's
company.
Borax is likewise considered to possess peculiar aphrodisiacal qualities. "Il
pénètre," says Venette, "toutes les parties de notre corps et ouvre tous les
vaisseaux, et par la ténuité de sa substance, il conduit aux parties génitales
tout ce qui est capable de nous servir de matière à la semence."148
The plant Rocket (Brasica eruca) has likewise been especially celebrated
by the ancient poets for possessing the virtue of restoring vigour to the
sexual organs, on which account it was consecrated to and sown around, the
statue of Priapus; thus Columella says:—
"Et quæ frugifero seritur vicina Priapo
Excitet ut veneri tardos eruca maritos."149

"Th' eruca, Priapus, near thee we sow
To rouse to duty husbands who are slow."

Virgil attributes to it the same quality, designing it as—
"... Et venerem revocans eruca morantem."150

"Th' eruca, plant which gives to jaded appetite the spur."

Lobel151 gives an amusing account of the effects of this plant upon certain
monks in the garden of whose monastery it was sown, an infusion of it
being daily doled out to them under the impression that its cheering and
exhilarating qualities would rouse them from the state of inactivity and
sluggishness so common to the inmates of such establishments. But, alas!
the continual use of it produced an effect far more powerful than had been
contemplated by the worthy itinerant monk who had recommended it, for
the poor cenobites were so stimulated by its aphrodisiacal virtues that,
transgressing alike their monastic wall and vows, they sought relief for their
amorous desires in the fond embraces of the women residing in the
neighbourhood.

Salt, mala Bacchica152 Cubebs, Surag,153 and radix Chinæ (bark), were also
regarded by ancient physicians as powerful aphrodisiacs. Gomez154 asserts
of the first of these substances, that women who much indulge in it are
thereby rendered more salacious, and that, for this reason, Venus is said to
have arisen from the sea; whence the epigram:
"Unde tot in Veneta scortorum millia cur sunt?
In promptu causa est. Venus orta mari."

"In Venice why so many punks abound?
The reason sure is easy to be found:
Because, as learned sages all agree,
Fair Venus' birth-place was the salt, salt sea."

To the last of the above-mentioned plants, Baptista Porta ascribes the most
wonderful powers, his words being: Planta quæ non solum edentibus, sed et
genitale languentibus tantum valet, ut coire summe desiderant, quoties fere
velint, possint; alios duodecies profecisse, alios ad sexaginta vices
pervenisse, refert.155

Certain condiments are also aphrodisiacal, acting as they undoubtedly do,
as powerful stimulants. Thus Tourtelle and Peyrible assure us that pepper is
a provocative to venereal pleasures, while Gesner and Chappel cured an
atony of the virile member of three or four years' duration, by repeated
immersions of that organ in a strong infusion of mustard seed.
The principal ingredient of the Bang so much used by the Indians, as well
as of the Maslac of the Turks is a species of the hemp plant. The Indians,
says Acosta,156 masticate the seeds and leaves of several species of that
plant, in order to increase their vigour in the venereal congress, and very
frequently combine with it, ambergris, musk, and sugar, preparing it in the
form of an electuary. It has been remarked, moreover, that even in our own
climate, the caged birds that are fed with hemp seed are the most amorously
inclined.

According to Browne157 whole fields are in Africa sown with hashish, the
bang of the East Indies, for the purpose of being used as a stimulant to
amorous dalliance. It is used in a variety of forms, but in none, it is
supposed, more effectually than what in Arabic, is called Maijûn, a kind of
electuary, in which both men and women indulge to excess.
It is said that the Chinese, domesticated at Batavia, avail themselves of a
certain electuary for the purpose of stimulating their appetite for sexual
intercourse. This preparation, called by them Affion, is chiefly composed of
opium, and it is asserted that its effect is so violent that a brutal passion
supervenes and continues throughout the night, the female being obliged to
flee from the too energetic embraces of her lover.158
Narcotics, in general, and especially, opium, have been considered as direct
aphrodisiacs, an opinion which, if well founded, would enable us to account
more easily far those agreeable sensations by which the use of these
substances is followed.
But it is very probable that narcotics act upon the genital organs in no other
way than they do upon the other ones, that is to say, they certainly do
simulate them, but only proportionately to the increase of force in the
circulation of the blood and to the power or tone of the muscular fibre. It is
also very probable that the voluptuous impressions superinduced by them

depend upon the circumstances under which those persons are, who
habitually indulge in them, and that they are connected with other
impressions or with particular ideas which awaken them. If, for instance, in
a Sultan reclining upon his sofa, the intoxication of opium is accompanied
by images of the most ravishing delight, and if it occasions in him that
sweet and lively emotion which the anticipation of those delights awakens
throughout the whole nervous system, the same inebriation is associated in
the mind of a Janizary or a Spahi with ideas of blood and carnage, with
paroxysms, the brutal fury of which has certainly, nothing in common with
the tender emotions of love. It is in vain to allege in proof of the
aphrodisiacal qualities of opium the state of erection in which the genital
members of Turks are found when lying dead on a field of battle,159 for this
state depends upon, or is caused by, the violent spasm or universal
convulsive movements with which the body is seized in the moment of
death: the same phenomenon frequently appears in persons who suffer
hanging. In warm countries, it is the concomitant of death from convulsive
diseases, and in our own climate, it has been observed in persons who have
died from apoplectic attacks.
The power which certain odours possess of exciting venereal desires admits
not the slightest doubt, at least as far as the inferior animals are concerned.
Nearly all the mammifera exhale or emit, in the rutting season, peculiar
emanations serving to announce from afar to the male the presence of the
female and to excite in him the sexual desire. Facts have been observed
with respect to insects even, which cannot be otherwise accounted for than
by odorous effluvia. If, for instance, the female of the bombyx butterfly, be
placed in a box accurately closed, it will not be long before several males
will be seen flying around the prison, and which could not possibly have
known, by means of their visual organs, the presence of their captive
Dulcinea. Now the question is, does anything analogous take place in our
own species? Many authors assert that there does, and among them Virey,
who, speaking of such exhalations, says: "L'extrême propreté des hommes
et des femmes, l'habitude de se baigner et de changer souvent de linge font
disparaïtre les odeurs génitales.60 ... On doit aussi remarquer que la haire
des Cénobites, la robe des Capucins, le froc des moines, les vêtements rudes
et mal-propres de diverses corporations religieuses exposent ceux qui les
portent à de fortes tentations, à cause de la qualité stimulante et de la sueur

fétide dont étaient bientôt empreintes toutes ces sortes d'habillements."161
"Odours," observes Cabanis162 "act powerfully upon the nervous system,
they prepare it for all the pleasurable sensations; they communicate to it
that slight disturbance or commotion which appears as if inseperable from
emotions of delight, all which may be accounted for by their exercising a
special action upon those organs whence originate the most rapturous
pleasure of which our nature is susceptible. In infancy its influence is
almost nothing, in old age it is weak, its true epoch being that of youth, that
of love."
It is certain that among most nations, and from the remotest antiquity,
voluptuous women strengthened their amorous propensities by the use of
various perfumes, but particularly of musk, to which has been attributed the
power of exciting nocturnal emissions. The great Henry IV., of France, no
novice in love affairs, was opposed to the use of odours, maintaining that
the parts of generation should be allowed to retain their natural scent,
which, in his opinion, was more effectual than all the perfumes ever
manufactured by art.
Another aphrodisiacal remedy, which for a long time enjoyed a great
reputation was the penis of the stag, which was supposed to possess the
virtue of furnishing a man with an abundance of seminal fluid. Perhaps the
reason why the ancients attributed this property to the genital member of
that animal was from the supposition that it was the receptacle of the bile;
that the abundance and acrid quality of this fluid caused lasciviousness, and
that the stag being transported by an erotic furor during the rutting season,
he was the most salacious of animals, and consequently that the genital
organ of this quadruped would, when applied to man's generative apparatus,
impart thereto considerable heat and irritation. A somewhat similar opinion
respecting the horse appears to have obtained among the Tartars, if we may
judge from the following account given by Foucher d'Obsonville:163 "Les
palefreniers aménent un cheval de sept à huit ans, mais nerveux, bien nourri
et en bon état. On lui présente une jument comme pour la saillir, et
cependant on le retient de façon à bien irriter ses idées. Enfin, dans le
moment où il semble qu'il va lui être libre de s'élancer dessus, l'on fait
adroitment passer la verge dans un cordon dont le nœud coulant est
rapproché au ventre, ensuite, saisissant à l'instant où l'animal parait dans sa

plus forte érection, deux hommes qui tiennent les extrémités du cordon le
tirent avec force et, sur le champ, le membre est séparé du corps au dessus
le nœud coulant. Par ce moyen, les esprits sont retenus et fixés dane cette
partie laquelle rests gonflée; aussitôt on la lave et la fait cuire avec divers
aromatiques et épiceries aphrodisiaques."
The means of procuring the vigour necessary for sexual delights has also
been sought for in certain preparations celebrated by the alchymists. Struck
by the splendour of gold, its incorruptibility, and other rare qualities, some
physicians imagined that this metal might introduce into the animal
economy an inexhaustible source of strength and vitality; while empirics,
abusing the credulity of the wealthy and the voluptuous made them pay
exorbitantly for aphrodisiacal preparations in which they assured their
dupes that gold, under different forms, was an ingredient. Among
innumerable other instances, is that of a French lady who, to procure herself
an heir, strove to reanimate an exhausted constitution by taking daily in
soup what she was made to believe was potable gold, to the value of 50
francs, a fraud to expose which it suffices to say that the largest dose of
perchloride of gold that can be safely administered is 1/6th of a grain. The
tincture of gold known by the name of Mademoiselle Grimaldi's potable
gold enjoyed a wonderful reputation towards the close of the 18th century
as an efficacious restorative and stimulant; and numerous instances of its all
but miraculous powers were confidently adduced. Dr. Samuel Johnson,
indeed, in a note upon a well-known passage in Shakespeare,164 denies the
possibility of making gold potable: "There has long," he observes,
"prevailed an opinion that a solution of gold has great medicinal virtues,
and that the incorruptibility of gold might be communicated to the body
impregnated with it. Some have pretended to make gold potable among
other frauds practised upon credulity." So far back, however, as the 17th
century the Abbé Guence shewed that it was feasible, and even described
the process minutely; and it is now known to every chemist that gold is
susceptible of entering into immediate combination with chlorine by the
agency of heat, that it may even be dissolved in water charged with
chlorine, and that various methods exist of obtaining chlorate of gold, a
combination which is often successfully employed in the treatment of
syphilitic cases. Ether, naptha, and essential oils take gold from its solvent,
and form liquors which have been called potable gold.

Even the Christian Church itself possessed, in its early times, aphrodisiacs
peculiarly its own. "On trouve," says Voltaire,165 "dans la lettre à Maitre
Acacius Lampirius (Literæ virorum obscurorum) une raillerie assez forte
sur la conjuration qu'on employait pair se faire aimer des filles. Le secret
consistoit à prendre un cheveu be la fille, on le plaçoit d'abord dans son
haut-de-chausses; on faisoit une confession générale et on fesoit dire trois
messes, pendant les quelles on mettoit le cheveu autour de son col; on
allumait un cièrge béni au dernier Evangile en on prononcait cette formule.
'O Vierge! je te conjure par la vertu du Dieu tout-puissant, par des neuf
chœurs des anges, par la vertu gosdrienne, amène moi icelle fille, en chair
et en os, afin que je la saboule à mon plaisir.'"

Bourchard, Bishop of Worms, has transmitted to us166 an account of certain
aphrodisiacal charms practised by women of his time, the disgusting
obscenity of which is such that we cannot venture upon translating the
passage:
"Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent? Tollunt menstruum suum
sanguinem et immiscunt cibo vel potui et dant viris suis ad manducandum
vel ad bibendum ut plus diligantur ab eis. Si fecisti, quinque annos per
legitimas ferias pœniteas.
"Gustasti de semine viri tui ut propter tua diabolica facta plus in amorem
exardisceret? Si fecisti, septem annos per legitimas ferias pœnitere debeas.
"Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent? Prosternunt se in faciem et
discoopertis natibus, jubent ut supra nudas nates conficirtur panis, ut eo
decocto tradunt maritis suis ad comedendum. Hoc ideo faciunt ut plus
exardescant in amorem suum. Si fecisti, duos annos per legitimas ferias
pœniteas.
"Fecisti quad quædam mulieres facere solent? Tollunt piscem vivum et
mittunt eum in puerperium suum, et tamdiu ibi tenent, donec mortuus fuerit,
et decocto pisce vel assato, maritis suis ad comedendum tradunt. Ideo
faciunt ut plus in amorem suum exardescant. Si fecisti, duos annos per
legitimas ferias pœniteas."
Remedies taken internally are not the only ones which stimulate man to
sexual intercourse. External applications materially contribute to that end,

and liniments have been composed wherewith to anoint the parts of
generation. These washes are made of honey, liquid storax, oil and fresh
butter, or the fat of the wild goose, together with a small quantity of spurge,
pyrethrum, ginger or pepper to insure the remedy's penetrating: a few grains
of ambergris, musk, or cinnamon are to be added by way of perfume.
Remedies for the same purpose may also be applied to men's testicles
especially; as according to the opinion of Galen, those parts are the second
source of heat, which they communicate to the whole of the body; for,
besides the power of engendering, they also elaborate a spirituous humour
or fluid which renders man robust, hardy, and courageous. The best
application of this kind is that composed of cinnamon powder, gilliflower,
ginger and rose water, together with theriac, the crumb of bread, and red
wine.
In addition to the means already mentioned for restoring vigour to the
generative organs, two others may be reckoned which have been
successfully resorted to for bracing them in such persons whose
reproductive faculties lie dormant rather than extinct: these two methods are
known as flagellation and urtication.167
Flagellation was recommended by several of the ancient physicians as an
effectual remedy in many disorders, and this upon the physiological axiom
of Hippocrates—ubi stimulus, ibi affluxus. Seneca considers it as able to
remove the quartan ague. Jerome Mercurialis speaks of it as employed by
many physicians in order to impart embonpoint to thin, meagre persons;
and Galen informs us that slave merchants used it as a means of clearing the
complexion of their slaves and plumping them up. Alædeus of Padua,
recommends flagellation with green nettles, that is, urtication, to be
performed on the limbs of young children for the purpose of hastening the
eruption of the small pox. Thomas Campanella168 attributes to flagellation
the virtue of curing intestinal obstructions, and adduces in proof to his
assertion, the case of the Prince of Venosa, one of the best musicians of his
time, who could not go to stool, without being previously flogged by a valet
kept expressly for that purpose.
Even at a later period the same opinion obtained as to the efficacy of
flagellation, it being supposed by many physicians to reanimate the torpid

circulation of the capillary and cutaneous vessels, to increase muscular
energy, to promote absorption, and to favour the necessary secretions of our
nature.169 As an erotic stimulant, more particularly it may be observed that,
considering the many intimate and sympathetic relations existing between
the nervous branches of the extremity of the spinal marrow, it is impossible
to doubt that flagellation exercised upon the buttocks and the adjacent parts,
has a powerful effect upon the organs of generation.

Meibomius,170 the great advocate for the use of this remedy, remarks, that
stripes inflicted upon the back and loins are of great utility in exciting the
venereal appetite, because they create warmth in those parts whose office it
is to elaborate the semen and to convey it to the generative organs. He,
therefore, considered it by no means wonderful that the miserable victims
of debauchery and lasciviousness, as well as those whose powers have been
exhausted by age or excess, should have recourse to flagellation as a
remedy. He observes that its effect is very likely to be that of renewing
warmth in the now frigid parts, and of furnishing heat to the semen, an
effect in producing which the pain itself materially contributes by the blood
and heat which is thereby drawn down to the part until they are
communicated to the reproductive organs, the erotic passion being thus
raised, even in spite of nature herself, beyond her powers. A similar view is
taken by a modern writer, whose opinion is "that the effect of flagellation
may be easily referred to the powerful sympathy which exists between the
nerves of the lower part of the spinal marrow and other organs. Artificial
excitement appears in some degree natural; it is observed in several
animals, especially in the feline race. Even snails plunge into each other a
bony, prickly spur, that arises from their throats, and which, like the sting of
the wasp, frequently breaks off, and is left in the wound."171
After the appearance of the Abbé Boileau's Histoire de la Flagellation, the
Jesuits condemned several propositions found either in that work or in
others approved by him. The following is one:
"Necesse est cum musculi lumbares virgis aut flagellis diverberantur,
spiritus vitales revelli, adeoque salaces motus ob vicinam partium
genitalium et testium excitari, qui venereis ac illecebris cerebrum
mentemque fascinant ac virtutem castitatis ad extremas augustias redigunt."

From out of almost innumerable instances of the efficacy of flagellation as
an aphrodisiac, the following are selected.
Cornelius Gallus, the friend of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, and
who, according to Pliny, died the most delightful of deaths by expiring in
the embraces of the fondest object of his affections,172 was solely indebted
for the delicious transports he enjoyed with her to the scourge with which
her severe father chastised her for the faults that originated in too warm a
temperament, a punishment which, instead of counteracting, furthered the
wishes of the voluptuous Roman.

Jean Pic de Mirandole relates173 the case of a person known to him who,
being a great libertine, could not consummate the act of love without being
flagellated until the blood came, and that, therefore, providing himself for
the occasion with a whip steeped in vinegar, he presented it to his
inamorata, begging her not to spare him, for "plus on le fouettait, plus il y
trouvait des délices, la douleur et la volupté marchant, dans cet homme,
d'un pas egal."
Meibomius mentions the case of a citizen of Lubeck who, being accused
and convicted of adultery, was sentenced to be banished. A woman of
pleasure with whom this man had
been for a long time intimate, appeared before the judges as a witness on his
behalf. This woman swore that the man was never able to consummate the
act of love with her unless he had been previously flogged,—an operation
which it was also necessary to repeat before each successive indulgence.
That this was a means employed by Abelard in his commerce with Heloisa,
appears from the following passages in two of his letters to her;
"Verbera quandoque dabat amor non furor, gratia non ira quæ omnium
unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent."174
"Stripes which, whenever inflicted by love, not by fury but affection,
transcended, in sweetness, every unguent."
"Nosti quantis turpitudinibus immoderata mea libido corpora nostra
addixerat et nulla honestatis vel Dei reverentia in ipsis diebus Dominicæ
passionis vel quantarumque solemnitatem ut hujus luti volutabro me

revocavit. Sed et te nolentem aut dissuadentem quæ natura infirmior eras, ut
sæpius minis ac flagellis ad consensum trahebam.175"
"Thou knowest to what shameful excesses my unbridled lust had delivered
up our bodies, so that no sense of decency, no reverence for God, could,
even in the season of our Lord's passion, or during any other holy festival,
drag me forth from out that cesspool of filthy mire; but that even with
threats and scourges I often compelled thee who wast, by nature, the weaker
vessel, to comply, notwithstanding thy unwillingness and remonstrances."
The renowned Tamerlane, the mighty conqueror of Asia, required a like
stimulus,176 the more so perhaps from the circumstance of his being a
monorchis.177
The Abbé Boileau, in his well known and entertaining "Histoire des
Flagellants," partly attributes the gross licentiousness of that period to the
strange practice then in vogue of doing penance by being scourged in
public; and his brother the celebrated poet and critic, defending the Abbé
against the animadversions of the Jesuits, remarks very forcibly:

"Non, le livre des Flagellans
N'a jamais condamné, lisez le bien, mes pères,
Ces rigidités salutaires
Qui, pour ravir le Ciel, saintement violens,
Exercent sur leurs corps, tant de Chrétiens austères;
Il blâme seulement ces abus odieux
D'étaler et d'offrir aux yeux
Ce que leur doit toujours cacher la bienveillance,
Et combat vivement la fausse piété,
Qui sous couleur d'eteindre en nous la volupté
Par l'austérité méme, et par la pénitence
Sait allumer le feu de la lubricité.178"

Flagellation, indeed, as well as the custom of wearing the hair-shirt, so
common with the monks, and even with religious lay catholics, was, by the
stimulus it imparted to the skin, and hence to the internal viscera, much
more likely to increase the energy of the physiological functions, and thus
excite the commission of the very acts they are intended to suppress.
The Abbé Chuppe d'Auteroche, member of the Académie des Sciences, and
who died in California a few days after the observation of the Transit of
Venus in 1760, remarks that the stripes given to persons frequenting the
vapour baths in Russia impart activity to the fluids and elasticity to the
organs and gives additional stimulus to the venereal appetite.179
M. Serrurier records the following curious case. "One of my schoolfellows,
who found an indescribable pleasure in being flogged, purposely and
wilfully neglected his duty in order to draw upon himself the correction,
which never failed to produce an emission of semen. As may easily be
imagined he soon began the practice of masturbation, in which he indulged
to so frightful an extent that rapid consumption ensued, and he died, a most
horrible and disgusting object, affording a melancholy example of that fatal
vice."180
The case of Jean Jacques Rousseau is well known. When a child he was by
no means displeased with the corrections administered to him by a lady
considerably his elder, he even frequently sought for a whipping at her
hands, especially after he perceived that the flagellation developed in him
the manifest token of virility. But he must be allowed to give his own
account of it. "Assez long temps," says he, "Madame Lambercier s'entint à
la menace, et cette menace d'un châtiment tout nouveau pour moi me

semblait très effrayante, mais après l'exécution, je la trouvai moins terrible à
l'épreuve que l'attente ne l'avait été, et ce qu'il y a de plus bizarre est qui ce
châtiment m'affectionna davantage d'elle qui me l'avoit imposé. Il fallait
même toute la vérité de cette affection et toute ma douceur naturelle pour
m'empêcher de chercher le retour du même traitement en le méritant, car
j'avais trouvé dans la douleur, dans la honte même, un mélange de
sensualité qui m'avait laissé plus de désir que de crainte de l'éprouver
derechef, par la même main. Il est vrai que comme il se mêlait, sans doute,
à cela quelque instinct précoce du sexe, le même châtiment reçu de son
frère, ne m'eut point du tout, parut plaisant."180
As flagellation is practised by striking the skin with a rod formed of twigs,
until the heat and redness become more intense, so if the twigs be replaced
by fresh nettles, the operation will become,—urtication.
The employment of urtication is of great antiquity, for Celsus as well as
Aretæus mentions the use of it, it being in those times, a popular remedy.
That the Romans had frequent recourse to it in order to arouse the sexual
appetite, is proved by the following passage from Petronius Arbiter, which
for obvious reasons, we shall content ourselves with giving in the original
only. "Oenothea semiebria ad me respiciens;—Perficienda sunt, inquit,
mysteria ut recipas nervos.
"Simulque profert scorteum fascinum quod, ut olio et minuto pipere, atque
urticæ trito circumdedit semine, paulatim cœpit inserere ano meo. Hoc
crudelissima anus spargit subinde femina mea Nasturcii182 succum cum
abrotono miscet, perfusis que inguinibus meis, viridis urticæ fascem
comprehendit omnes que infra umbilicum cœpit lenta manu cædere."183
Menghus Faventinus assures us that nettles have "une propriété
merveilleuse pour allonger, tendre, grossir et ériger le membre viril, qui, par
une parsimonie de la nature, feroit craindre la stérilité."184
Urtication appears to have been well known in France during the time of
Rabelais, who alluding to this mode of procuring the vigour necessary for
the amorous conflict, says, "se frotter le cul au panicaut (a species of thistle)
vrai moyen d'avoir au cul passion."
Une femme en mélancholie

Pour faute d'occupation,
Frottez moi le cul d'ortie
Elle aura au cul passion.185

The irritation caused by nettles produces effects analogous to those which
are observed in persons afflicted with the itch, the ring-worm and leprosy.
The lubricity of those unfortunates is sometimes uncontrolable; they suffer
violent priapisms, which are followed by ejaculation, whenever a severe
itching forces them to scratch themselves with a kind of furor or madness.
"In a medical point of view," observes Dr. Milligen, "urtication, or stinging
with nettles, is a practice not sufficiently appreciated. In many instances,
especially in cases of paralysis it is more efficacious than blistering or
stimulating frictions. Its effects, though perhaps less permanent, are general
and diffused over the limb. This process has been found effectual in
restoring heat to the lower extremities, and a case of obstinate lethargy was
cured by Corvisart by a repeated urtication of the whole body. During the
action of the stimulus, the patient, who was a young man, would open his
eyes and laugh, but then sink again into a profound sleep. In three weeks,
however, his perfect cure was effected.186
In 1783, Dr. James Graham, an humble imitator of the celebrated
Cagliostro, commenced giving his sanatary lectures, which he illustrated by
the dazzling presence of his Goddess of Health, a character which, for a
short time, was sustained by Emma Harte, afterwards the celebrated Lady
Hamilton, wife of Sir William Hamilton, English Ambassador at the Court
of Naples, and the chère amie of the immortal Nelson.
After describing various aphrodisiacal remedies, the lecturer thus proceeds:
"But, gentlemen, if all the above means and methods, which I have thus
faithfully, ingenuously, and with the frankest and most unreserved liberality,
recommended, fail, suffer me, with great cordiality, and assurance of
success, to recommend my celestial, or medico, magnetico, musico,
electrical bed, which I have, with so much study and at so vast an expense,
constructed, not alone to insure the removal of barrenness, when conception
is at all in the nature of things possible, but likewise to improve, exalt, and
invigorate the bodily, and through them, the mental faculties of the human
species. This bed, whose seemingly magical influences are now celebrated
from pole to pole and from the rising to the setting sun! is indeed an unique

in science! and unquestionably the first and the only one that ever was
mentioned, erected, or even, perhaps, thought of, in the world; and I will
now conclude the lecture with giving you a slight descriptive sketch of the
structure of the bed, and the nature of those influences with which it glows
—which it breathes forth, and with which it animates, regenerates, and
transports those happy, happy persons who have the honour and the
paradisiacal blessedness of reposing on it.
"The Grand Celestial State Bed! then, gentlemen, which is twelve feet long
by nine wide, is supported by forty pillars of brilliant glass, of great strength
and of the most exquisite workmanship, in regard to shape, cutting, and
engravings; sweetly delicate and richly variegated colours, and the most
brilliant polish! They are, moreover, invisibly incrusted with a certain
transparent varnish in order to render the insulation still more complete; and
that otherwise, properly assisted, we may have, in even the most
unfavourable weather, abundance of the electrical fire.
"The sublime, the magnificent, and, I may say, the super-celestial dome of
the bed, which contains the odoriferous, balmy, and ethereal spices, odours,
and essences, and which is the grand magazine or reservoir of those
vivifying and invigorating influences which are exhaled and dispersed by
the breathing of the music, and by the attenuating, repelling, and
accelerating force of the electrical fire,—is very curiously inlaid or wholly
covered on the under side with brilliant plates of looking-glass, so disposed
as to reflect the various attractive charms of the happy recumbent couple, in
the most flattering, most agreeable and most enchanting style.
"On the top or summit of the dome, are placed, in the most loving attitudes,
two exquisite figures, representing the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, with
a fine figure of Hymen behind, and over them, with his torch flaming with
electrical fire in one hand and, with the other, supporting a celestial crown,
sparkling, likewise, with the effulgent fire over a pair of real living turtle-
doves, who, on a little bed of roses, coo and bill under the super-animating
impulses of the genial fire! The other elegant groups of figures which sport
on the top of the dome—the Cupids, the Loves, and the Graces!—besides
festoons of the freshest and most beautiful flowers, have each of them
musical instruments in their hands, which by the exquisite and most
expensive mechanism, are made to breathe forth sounds corresponding with

the appearance of the several instruments,—flutes, guitars, violins,
clarionets, trumpets, horns, oboes, kettle-drums, &c. On the posts or pillars,
too, which support the grand dome are groups of figures, musical
instruments, organ-pipes, &c., which, in sweet concert with the other
instruments, at the commencement of the tender dalliance of the happy pair,
breathe forth celestial sounds! lulling them in visions of elysian joys!
opening new sources of pleasure, and "untwisting all the chains which tie
the hidden soul of harmony!" At the head of the bed, in the full centre front,
appears, sparkling with electrical fire, through a glory of burnished and
effulgent gold, the great, first, ever-operating commandment, Be fruitful,
multiply, and replenish the earth! under this is a most elegant and sweet-
toned organ, in the front of which is a fine landscape of moving figures on
the earth, birds flying, swans, &c., gliding on the waters, a fine procession,
too, is seen, village nymphs strewing flowers before priests, brides,
bridegrooms, and their attendants, who, all entering into the temple of
Hymen, disappear from the delightful eye. The painting and embellishment
of this front are most masterly, and reflect the highest honour on the artists
by whom they were executed; and the whole view is terminated with
fountains, waterfalls, shepherds, shepherdesses, and other peasants, as
pastoral sports and rural employment, and by a little church, the dial of
which points out truly and distinctly the hour.
"In the celestial bed no feather bed is employed; sometimes mattresses
filled with sweet new wheat or cut straw, with the grain in the ears, and
mingled with balm, rose leaves, lavender flowers, and oriental spices, and,
at other times, springy hair mattresses are used. Neither will you find upon
the celestial bed linen sheets; our sheets are of the richest and softest silk or
satin; of various colours suited to the complexion of the lady who is to
repose on them. Pale green, for example, rose colour, sky blue, black, white,
purple, azure, mazarin blue, &c., and they are sweetly perfumed in the
oriental manner, with otto and odour of roses, jessamine, tuberose, rich
gums, fragrant balsams, oriental spices, &c.,; in short, everything is done to
assist the ethereal, magnetic, musical and electric influences, and to make
the lady look as lovely as possible in the eyes of her husband and he, in
hers. But to return, in order that I might have for the important purposes, the
strongest and most springy hair, I procured, at a vast expense, the tails of

English stallions, which when twisted, baked and then untwisted and
properly prepared, is elastic to the highest degree.
"But the chief elastic principle of my celestial bed is produced by artificial
loadstones. About fifteen hundred pounds' weight of artificial and
compound magnets are so disposed and arranged as to be continually
pouring forth in an ever-flowing circle inconceivable and irrestibly
powerful tides of the magnetic effluxion, which is well known to have a
very strong affinity with the electric fire.
"Such is a slight and inadequate sketch of the grand celestial bed, which,
being thus completely insulated,—highly saturated with the most genial
floods or electrical fire!—fully impregnated moreover, with the balmy
vivifying effluvia of restorative balsamic medicines and of soft, fragrant,
oriental gums, balsams and quintescence, and pervaded at the same times
with full springing tides of the invigorating influences of music and
magnets both real and artificial, gives such elastic vigour to the nerves, on
the one hand, of the male, and on the other, such retentive firmness to the
female; and, moreover, all the faculties of the soul being so fully expanded,
and so highly illuminated, that it is impossible, in the nature of things, but
that strong, beautiful, brilliant, nay, double-distilled children, if I may use
the expression, must infallibly be begotten."
A digression may, perhaps, be here pardonable, in order to give some notice
of the latter and last days of the beautiful, highly accomplished and
fascinating woman mentioned above.
She had been presented to Nelson by her husband, who had previously told
her that he was about to introduce her to a little thread-paper of a man, who
could not boast of being very handsome, but who would become, some day,
one of the greatest men that England ever produced. After the battle of the
Nile he again visited Naples, and was now little better than a perfect wreck.
At Calvi, in 1794, he had lost an eye. At Teneriffe his right arm was
shattered and amputated close to the shoulder. At the battle of the Nile he
was severely wounded in the head. Incessant anxiety and watchfulness for
his country's honour and welfare had blanched his brow, and shattered the
"little thread-paper of a man" at the outset, till, on his return in triumph to
his mistress, he seemed to be on the verge of an early grave.

Yet she proved herself a true woman, if an erring one, in her reception of
the man she loved, and unhesitatingly and unequivocally forsook her all, to
attend upon and worship him.
Not far from Merton turnpike stood the house of Nelson and his mistress. It
was left with all its liabilities to Lady Hamilton, but she was obliged to take
a hasty departure, and, harassed by creditors, in sickness of heart and
without funds, the unhappy woman escaped to Calais.
Now for the sad, sad finale. From the portal of a house, as cheerless and
dreary as can be imagined, in the month of January, with a black silk
petticoat stretched on a white curtain thrown over her coffin for a pall, and
an half-day Irish dragoon to act as chaplain over the grave, which was in a
timber-yard, were the remains of Nelson's much-adored friend removed to
their final resting place, under the escort of a sergent de ville.
She died without the common necessaries of life, and was buried at the
expense of the town, notwithstanding Nelson's last words, "Blackwood, take
care of my poor Lady Hamilton!"
"Whatever the errors of Lady Hamilton may have been," says Doran, "let us
not forget that without her aid, as Nelson said, the battle of the Nile would
never have been fought, and that in spite of her sacrifices and services,
England left her to starve, because the government was too virtuous to
acknowledge the benefits rendered to her country by a lady with too loose a
zone."

The remarks of honest old Burton186 upon Aphrodisiacs, though quaint, are
so judicious and pertinent, that we cannot better conclude this part of our
essay than by quoting them:—
"The last battering engines," says he, "are philters, amulets, charms, images,
and such unlawful meanes: if they cannot prevail of themselves by the help
of bawds, panders, and their adherents, they will fly for succour to the devil
himself. I know there be those that denye the devil can do any such thing,
and that there is no other fascination than that which comes by the eyes. It
was given out, of old, that a Thessalian wench had bewitched King Philip to
dote on her, and by philters enforced his love, but when Olympia, his

queen, saw the maid of an excellent beauty well brought up and qualified:
these, quoth she, were the philters which enveagled King Philip, these the
true charms as Henry to Rosamond."187
"One accent from thy lips the blood more warmes
Than all their philters, exorcismes, and charms."

With that alone Lucretia brags, in Aretine, she could do more than all
philosophers, astrologers, alychmists, necromancers, witches, and the rest
of the crew. As for herbs and philters I could never skill of them. The sole
philter I ever used was kissing and embracing, by which alone I made men
rave like beasts, stupefied and compelled them to worship me like an
idol.189

ANTI-APHRODISIACS.

The means best calculated to produce effects contrary to those just treated
of are of several kinds, but such as are derived from hygiene are entitled to
be considered as the most powerful. Previously, however, to describing the
medicinal substances that may be efficaciously employed in moderating, or
rather checking, too violent a propensity to venery, some notice must be
taken of the diet adapted to insure such a result.
The use of milk, vegetables, such as lettuce, water-purslain, cucumbers,
&c., and especially of fruit in which the acid principle predominates,
slackens the movement of the heart and of the sanguineous system; it
diminishes the animal heat, the chief source of which is in the activity of the
circulation; it produces a feeling of tranquillity and of coolness; the
respiration being more slow, occasions the absorption of a less quantity of
oxygen, add to which, as a less quantity of reparative materials is contained
in this description of aliments, there result a less active nutrition, the loss of
embonpoint and the complete prostration of every principle of irritability; in
short, it is of all diets the one least capable of furnishing fuel to the
passions. For common drink mere water, and, if the impulse of passion

should increase, a small quantify of nitre, vinegar, or vitrolic acid, may,
occasionally be added to the water to make it more cooling.
Other means conducive to the same end are a laborious life, much bodily
exercise, little sleep, and a spare diet, so that the fluids may be more easily
conducted to other parts, and that there may not be produced a greater
quantity than is requisite for the support of the body. Equally valuable
"When there's a young and sweating devil
That commonly rebels,"

will be found what Shakespeare recommends—
"A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
Much castigation, exercise devout."190

Should the desire of committing excesses rise to any height, immediate
recourse must be had to some serious and mind-absorbing occupation, less
nutritious food and drink should be taken, all dishes peculiarly stimulating
to the palate avoided, as well as the use of wine and other spirituous liquors.
A cool regimen in every respect was particularly insisted upon by the
ancients: hence Plato and Aristotle recommended the custom of going
barefoot as a means of checking the stimulus to carnal desire, a suggestion
which appears to have been acted upon by some of the monkish orders. The
cold bath was considered equally efficacious, while some, among whom
may be reckoned Pliny and Galen, advised thin sheets of lead to be worn on
the calves of the legs and near the kidneys.
The first and most important of the hygienic means consists in shunning
every species of excitement and in having little or no communication with
the sex, and the earlier such restraint is imposed, the better. "He that is
chaste and continent, not to impair his strength, or terrified by contagion,
will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn not that virtue until those years
when Cato could lend out his wife, and impotent satyrs write satires against
lust—but be chaste in thy flaming days, when Alexander dared not trust his
eyes upon the fair sisters of Darius, and when so many men think that there
is no other way than that of Origen."191 192
The next means is that of carefully abstaining from the perusal of all
publications calculated to inflame the passions, by which publications are

meant, not obscene books only. With respect to these, indeed, a great error
obtains, for the persons most anxious to peruse them are, for the most part,
old, worn-out debauchees, men whose generative powers are,
comparatively, feeble, if not altogether destroyed, and who, unfortunately
for themselves, require this unnatural and detestable kind of stimulus,
while, on the contrary, young men and those in middle life, who had not
drawn too largely upon their constitution, and for whom the allurements of
nature are themselves a sufficient provocative, regard such publications
with horror and disgust. It is not, therefore, we repeat, works of this
description which we allude to, but those the perusal of which is more
dangerous during the period of the passions—novels, more especially such
as, under the pretext of describing the working of the human heart, draw the
most seducing and inflammatory pictures of illicit love, and throw the veil
of sentimental philosophy over the orgies of debauchery and licentiousness.
Nothing is more perilous to youth, especially of the female sex, than this
description of books. Their style is chaste, not one word is found that can
offend the ear, while the mind of the unsuspecting reader is often tainted
and corrupted by the most impure ideas and descriptions clothed in the most
elegant phraseology. How admirably does Voltaire stigmatise this attention
to a mere superficial (if the epitaph be allowed) purity! "Plus," says he "les
mœurs sont dépravés, plus les expressions deviennent mésurées: on croit de
gagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu. La pudeur s'est enfuite des
cœurs et s'est refugiée sur les lèvres."
There are two kinds of study particularly adapted to preserve the mind and
the affections from the assaults of vice and libidinousness. The first of these
is the Mathematics, whose efficacy in this respect has been proved by
frequent experience. The Venetian lady mentioned by Rousseau in his
"Confessions" was not ignorant of this their power, when, seeing the
singular effect which her charms had produced upon the, as yet, youthful
philosopher, said to him, "Gianetto, lascia le donne e studia la matimatica."
"James, give up the ladies, and apply yourself to mathematics." It will,
indeed, be found that, in all ages, mathematicians have been but little
disposed or addicted to love, and the most celebrated among them, Sir Isaac
Newton, is reputed to have lived without ever having had sexual
intercourse. The intense mental application required by philosophical

abstraction forcibly determines the nervous fluid towards the intellectual
organs, and hinders it from being directed towards those of reproduction.
After the study of the Mathematics comes that of Natural History, which
will be found to be almost equally beneficial, requiring as it does, the
unremitting attention of the student, his perambulation of the open country,
and the personal observation of all animated objects.
This peculiar influence of the above-mentioned studies ought particularly to
engage the attention of persons who superintend the education of youth;
there being no doubt that the effervescence of youthful passions may, to a
great extent, be allayed by directing the juvenile mind to either of those
studies, according as the constitution exhibits greater or less ardour and
precocity. Sometimes, however, there are found idiosyncrasies which bid
defiance to remedies of this description, but, nevertheless, yield to the force
of medicine: of such, the following is an instance:
"A man, by profession a musician, of an athletic figure and sanguine
complexion, with red hair, and a very warm temperament, was so tormented
with erotic desires that the venereal act, repeated several times in the course
of a few hours, failed to satisfy him. Disgusted with himself, and fearing, as
a religious man, the punishment with which concupiscence is threatened in
the Gospel, he applied to a medical practitioner, who prescribed bleeding
and the use of sedatives and refrigerants, together with a light diet. Having
found no relief from this course of treatment, he was then recommended to
have recourse to wedlock, and, in consequence, married a robust and
healthy young woman, the daughter of a farmer. At first, the change
appeared to benefit him, but, in a short time, he tired his wife out by his
excessive lubricity, and relapsed into his former satyriasis. His medical
friend now recommended frequent fasting, together with prayer, but these
also failing of effect, the unhappy man proposed to submit to castration, an
operation which was judged to be highly improper, considering the great
risks the patient must necessarily incur. The latter, however, still persisted
that his wish should be complied with, when, fortunately, a case having
occurred in Paris, in which a person afflicted with nephritic pains
occasioned by the presence of a calculus, was cured by a preparation of
nitre, at the expense, however, of being for ever incapacitated for the
pleasures of love, the hint was taken, and doses of nitre dissolved in aqua

nymphæ were given, night and morning, during the space of eight days, and
with such success that, at the end of that time, he could scarcely satisfy the
moderate claims of his wife."193
Some physicians place great confidence in the medicines called
refrigerants. The most favourite of these are infusions from the leaves or
flowers of the white water-lily (nymphea alba), sorrel, lettuce, perhaps also
from mallows, violets, and endive (cichorium), oily seeds, and waters
distilled from lettuce, water lily, cucumbers, purslain, and endives. In equal
esteem are the syrups of orgeat, lemons, and vinegar, to which may be
added cherry-laurel water, when given in proper and gradually-increasing
doses. Hemlock, camphor, and agnus-castus, have likewise been much
recommended as moderators of the sexual appetite.

According to Pliny,194 the nymphea alba was considered so powerful that
these who take it for twelve days successively will then find themselves
incapable of propagating their species, and if it be used for forty days, the
amorous propensity will be entirely extinguished.
With respect to hemlock, it is too dangerous a medicine to repose
confidence in.
The ancients had a high opinion of camphor, a reputation which this drug
preserved until, comparatively, a late period, for Scaliger informs that, in
the 17th century, monks were compelled to smell and masticate it for the
purpose of extinguishing concupiscence; and it was a favourite maxim of
the medical school of Salernum195 that—
"Camphora per nares castrat odore mares."

Camphor if smell'd
A man will geld.

This fatal property, however, has been denied by modern medical
authorities, and apparently with reason, if the fact be true that such
workmen as are employed in extracting this useful vegetable product, and
who may be said to live constantly in a highly camphorated atmosphere, do
not find themselves in the leash degree incapacitated for gratifying the calls
of l'amour physique.

There is no doubt, on the other hand, that camphor has been successfully
employed in cases of nymphomania, and that several medical writers have
asserted its efficacy in neutralising the properties of cantharides, adducing
instances which would appear to prove its sedative power: the following
one is related by Groenvelt:—196
A young man who had taken a large dose of cantharides in some wine, felt
at first, a sort of violent itching, accompanied by great irritation in the
bladder, and soon after he suffered greatly from extreme heat, together with
an intolerable strangury. Bleeding, emulsions, injections, and opium
preparations afforded not the slightest relief. Groenvelt prescribed two
scruples of camphor in two boluses. The first dose partly mitigated the
pains, and the second one removed them entirely. The remedies which were
first administered had, no doubt, weakened the inflammation, and the
strangury being no longer kept up by the spasmodic state of the urinary
apparatus, camphor sufficed to effect a cure. Burton asserts the value of
camphor as an anti-aphrodisiac, and says that when fastened to the parts of
generation, or carried in the breeches, it renders the virile member flaccid.
Agnus castus, so called from the down on its surface resembling that upon
the skin of a lamb, and from its supposed anti-aphrodisiacal qualities, was
in great repute among the Athenians, whose women, during the celebration
of the Thesmophoria, or feasts and sacrifices in honour of Ceres or
Thesmophoria, the legislatress, abstained for some days from all the
pleasures of love, separating themselves entirely for that time from the men.
It was also usual with them during the solemnities to strew their beds with
agnus castus, fleabane, and other herbs as were supposed to have the power
of expelling amorous inclinations. Arnaud de Villeneuve197 exaggerates,
almost to a ridiculous degree, the virtue of the agnus castus, asserting as he
does, that the surest way to preserve chastity, is to carry about the person, a
knife with a handle made of its wood. It was also, and perhaps is still, much
used by the monks, who made an emulsion of its seeds steeped in Nenuphar
water, and of which they daily drank a portion, wearing at the same time
round their loins a girdle made of its branches. Lettuce has also the
reputation of being anti-aphrodisiacal. Lobel instances the case of an
English nobleman who had long been desirous of having an heir to his
estates, but all in vain. Being, however, at length advised to discontinue

eating lettuces, of which he was particularly fond, his wishes were gratified
by his being blessed with a numerous offspring.
The desire for coition was also supposed to be diminished by drinking a
decoction of the pounded leaves of the willow. Vervain, dried coriander, and
also mustard, drunk in a fluid state, are also said to prevent the erection of
the penis. Alexander Benedictus declares that a topaz having been
previously rubbed against the right testicle of a wolf, then steeped in oil or
in rose water and worn as a ring, induces a disgust for venereal pleasures, as
does also, if we may credit the same sapient physiologist, a powder made of
dried frog. The two following prescriptions are also said to be of great
efficacy:—
"Da verbena in potu, et non erigitur virga sex diebus. Utere menthâ siccâ
cum aceto: genitalia illinita succo hyoscyami aut cicutæ coitûs appetitum
sedant."
It has even been asserted that coffee possesses the same property. In the
year 1695 it was maintained, in a thesis at the Ecole de Médicine at Paris,
that the daily use of coffee deprived both man and woman of the generative
power. M. Hecquet198 relates the following anecdote as a proof of such
effect:—
A Queen of Persia seeing some grooms using all their efforts to throw a
horse upon the ground, enquired the reason of the trouble they were thus
taking. Her attendants gave her to understand as delicately as they could,
that it was far the purpose of castrating him.
"How unnecessary is so much trouble," said her majesty, "they have only to
give him coffee, and their object will be fully and easily attained."199
Most probably the queen spoke from her own experience of its anti-
aphrodisiacal effects upon her royal consort.
There are some diseases which are considered as anti-aphrodisiacal, on
account of the decided aversion which the patient who is afflicted with them
feels for the pleasures of the sexual union. Thus a species of epidemic
leprosy is common among the Cossacks of the Jaik, which is attended by
pains in the joints and a disgust for copulation, a disgust the more

extraordinary, not only because exanthematous diseases, in general excite a
desire for the above act, but also inasmuch as this malady, in particular
usually attacks persons in the prime of their youth. Another disease
analogous to the one just mentioned, the Plica-Polonica, rages, during the
autumnal season, in Poland, Lithuania, and Tartary. It is said to have been
introduced into the first of these countries by the Tartars, who had it
originally from India. One of the most singular phenomena attending this
disorder, and which evidently proves the close sympathy existing between
the head and the organs of generation, is that when the patient is bald, the
Plica not unfrequently fastens upon the sexual parts, and acquires such a
length as to descend below the calves of the legs. The made of treatment,
that of mercury and sudorifics, proves the mucous character of the disorder,
and, consequently, accounts for its well known tendency to strike the whole
animal economy with that prostration of strength which produces a total
indifference to the sex.

Continual exercise on horseback was considered by Hippocrates200 as anti-
aphrodisiacal and Van Sweiten commenting upon that opinion, justly
observes that the continual joltings caused by so violent an exercise, added
to the compression produced upon the parts of generation by the weight of
the body, was by no means unlikely to produce a focal relaxation of those
organs to such an extent as to prevent erection altogether.
If whatever opposes an obstacle to the gratification of the sexual appetite
may be considered as having a place among the anti-aphrodisiacs, certain
mechanical processes may be ranked as such. Of these, fibulation, from the
Latin word fibula (a buckle or ring) was the very reverse of circumcision,
since the operation consisted in drawing the prepuce over the glans, and
preventing its return, by the insertion of the ring.201
The Fibula (buckle) is so called, because it serves to fix together and to re-
unite parts which are separated. It was, formerly a surgical instrument
which, besides the use now particularly in question, served also to keep
closed the lips of any extensive wounds. It is mentioned as being so applied
by Oribuse,202 and by Scribonius Largus.203 Employed, therefore, as it was
for various uses, the fibula appears to have different shapes, now but little
known to us. Rhodius204 has treated of all those mentioned in the writings
of antiquity.

Meinsius thinks that the custom of infibulating may be traced back to the
time of the siege of Troy, for the singer Demodocus, who was left with
Clytemnestra by Agamemnon,205 appears to that critic, to have been a
eunuch, or, at least, to here been infibulated.206
Among the ancients, as well as among many modern nations, the laws of
chastity and the restraints of honour appeared scarcely sufficient to hinder
the sexes from uniting, in spite of all the obstacles opposed by a vigilant
watch and strict seclusion.207 Indeed, what Roman virgin could entertain
very strict ideas of modesty while she saw the goddess of love honoured in
the temple, or the amours of Venus and Mars celebrated, while the poor
cuckolded Vulcan, after seizing the amorous couple in his net, way only
thereby exposed to the ridicule of the Olympic Divinities. There can be
little doubt but that excess of this description bastardized and corrupted the
ancient Greeks and Romans, and that recourse was necessarily had to the
fibula when the deities themselves set the example. Of what use, indeed,
could be the moral lessons of a Plato or a Socrates, even when enforced by
infibulation, if vice was thus sanctioned by divine example? The only aim
of such a state of things was to vanquish obstacles. The art of eluding nature
was studied, marriage was despised, notwithstanding the edicts of Augustus
against bachelors; the depopulated republic wallowed in the most
abandoned lust, and, as a natural consequence, the individual members of it
became corrupted and enervated from their very infancy.
The infibulation of boys, sometimes on account of their voice, and not
unfrequently, to prevent masturbation, was performed by having the
prepuce drawn over the glans; it was then pierced, and a thick thread was
passed through it, remaining there until the cicatrizing of the hole; when
that took place, a rather large ring was then substituted, which was not
removed but with the permission of the party ordering the operation.208 The
Romans infibulated their singers in order to preserve their voice:
"Si gaudet cantu; nullius fibula durat
Vocem vendentis prætoribus."209
"But should the dame in music take delight,
The public singer is disabled quite;
In vain the prætor guards him all he can,
She slips the buckle (fibula) and enjoys her man."

They even subjected to the same operation most of their actors:
"Solvitur his magno comœdi fibula. Sunt, quæ
Chrysogonum cantare vetent."210
"Take from Chrysogonus the power to sing,
Loose, at vast prices, the comedian's ring."
"Dic mihi, simpliciter, comœdis et citharœdis,
Fibula, quod præstat?... carius ut futuunt."211

"Tell me, clasp! frankly, of what advantage are you to actresses and lute-
players? To enhance their favours."
"Menophili, penem tam grandis fibula vestit
Ut sit comœdis omnibus, una satis
Hunc ego credideram (nam sæpe lavamur in unum)
Sollicitum voci parcere, Flacce, suæ;
Dum ludit media populo spectante palæstra,
Delapsa est misero, fibula; verpus erat."212

"Una si gran fibula copre il membro di Menofila, che sola basterebbe a tutti i commenianti. Io O
Flacco, avevo creduto (imperocche si siamo sovente lavati insiême) che esso sollecito avesse cura
delle sua voce; lotta in mezzo la palestra a vista del popolo, la fibula cascó sventvrato; era un' inciso."

Nor were dancers and gladiators exempted from the same operation,
especially the latter, in order that they might preserve all the vigour required
in their horrible and degrading occupation.
The best description of the fibula is that given by Holiday: "The fibula,"
says he, "does not strictly signifie a button, but also a buckle or clasp, or
such like stay. In this place, the poet expresses by it the instrument of
servilitie applied to those that were employed to sing upon the stage; the
Prætor who set forth playes for the delight of the people, buying youths for
that purpose, and that they might not, by lust, spoil their voice, their
overseers closed their shame with a case of metal having a sharp spike of
the same metal passing by the side of it, and sometimes used one of another
form; or by a nearer crueltie, they thrust a brazen or silver wire thought that
part which the Jew did lose in circumcision.
"The form of the first, and also another fashion, the curious reader may here
see (being without any immodestie) as they are represented by Pignerius, de
servis, p. 82. But whatsoever the fashion or invention was, the trust was but
fond that was committed to them, seeing that the art of lust and gold could
make them as vain as the Italian engines of jealousy in this day. Thus, 'O

Lentulus,' says the poet, speaking figuratively to some nobleman, 'it is that
thou art married; but it is some musician's or fencer's bastard that is born
under thy lordly canopie.'"213
Plate VII.

PHALLIC FIBULÆ.

Winkleman furnishes us with a description of an infibulated musician,214 it
being a small bronze statue representing a naked deformed individual, as
thin as a skeleton, and carrying a ring in his enormi mentula. Martial, who

laughs at everything, speaks of these singers sometimes breaking their ring,
and says that it becomes necessary to send them to the fibula-makers in
order to have the damage repaired:215
"Et cujus refibulavit turgidum, faber, penem,
Il di cui turgido membro abbia fabro fibbiato."

The practice of infibulation was very common in India, from religious
motives. As a proof of their sanctity, many of the Santons, or Mohammedan
saints, as well as other devout persons, bonzes, fakirs, and the like, devoted
themselves to perpetual virginity. Whether it was with the intention of
placing themselves beyond the possibility of breaking their vow, or of
giving evidence of their constancy, certain it is that they loaded their
prepuce with an enormous fibula, or ring; and, in their warm climate, where
nudity does not shock ideas of propriety or decency, devout women not
unfrequently repaired to these soi-disant saints, to admire and venerate such
efforts of virtue and self-denial; they are even reported to have knelt down,
and, in that humiliating posture, to have kissed the preputial ring, no doubt
with the vain hope of thereby obtaining indulgences. In some places, these
martyrs fasten their fibula with a lock, the key which they deposit with the
magistrate of the town or village. But, nature insisting upon her rights, is
often too strong for this self-violence, nor can desire, or the not-to-be-
mistaken symptom of it, be opposed, or even prevented, from being
gratified; and since the lock, which obstructs the extremity of the prepuce
only, cannot hinder a kind of erection, nor, indeed, of effusion of the
seminal fluid, it cannot do more than oppose the introduction of the male
organ into the receptacle destined for it.
Another description of fakirs were formerly to be seen in India, and,
especially, in its southern peninsula, whose custom it was to traverse the
country in a state of nudity, and who had been rendered impotent by the
following regimen. The children destined for this penitential state are taken
away from their parents at the age of six or seven years, and made to eat,
daily, a quantity of the young leaves of a tree called Mairkousie. At first, the
dose given them is not larger than a filbert. This regimen must be persisted
in until the party reaches the age of five-and-twenty years, the dose being
increased till, at the maximum, it is as large as a duck's egg. During all this
time, the devotee is subjected to no other regimen, except a light purge,
once in six months, by means of Kadoukaie, or the black mirobolan.

Although rendered completely impotent by this mode of treatment, so far
from their physical strength and beauty of form being diminished or
deteriorated thereby, they are, on the contrary, improved by it; the
enjoyment of constant good health is likewise almost an invariable
consequence.
Infibulation is not confined to the male sex exclusively, for it is practised on
girls and women in India, Persia, and the East, generally, and most
commonly consists in joining together the female sexual organ, or closing
the labia of the vagina by a suture made with waxed thread, a small aperture
being left for the egress of the urine and the menstrua.
Linschet witnessed the operation at Pegu, as did also Schultz, Brown saw it
performed, at Darfour, on females from eleven to twelve years of age.216 At
the time of marriage, a cut of the bistouri dissevers the parts which have
been closed by the effects of the suture. Sometimes jealousy contents itself
by passing a ring through the parts. Women, as well as girls, are subjected
to this disgusting operation, the only difference being that the ring of the
latter cannot be removed, while that of the former has a kind of lock, the
key of which is in the husband's possession. Pallas informs us that the
beautiful nation of the Tcherkesses, or Circassians carefully preserve the
virginity of their girls by means of a leathern girdle, or rather corslet made
of skin, and sewn immediately upon the naked body. The husband alone has
the right of severing this corslet, which he does, on the nuptial night.
When the violation of virgin chastity and conjugal fidelity became more
frequent, fathers and husbands had recourse, even in Europe, to a
mechanical contrivance for the purpose of preserving intact the honour of
the family. This was a kind of padlock, which shut up all access to the seat
of voluptuousness. The invention is attributed to one Francesco di Carrera,
an imperial judge of Padua, who lived about the close of the 15th century.
The machine itself was called the Girdle of Chastity. Francesco's acts of
cruelty brought him to the scaffold, where he was strangled in 1405, by a
decree of the Senate of Venice. One of the principal accusations brought
against him was the employment of the Girdle of Chastity, for his
mistresses, and it is said by Misson217 that a box filled with these articles
was for a long time preserved in the palace of St. Mark, at Venice. Rabelais
speaks of these girdles, which he calls Ceintures á la Bergamasque, "Nay,"

says he, Pantagruel, "may that Nick in the dark cellar, who hath no white in
his eye, carry me quiet away with him, if, in that case, whenever I go
abroad from the palace of my domestic residence, I do not, with as much
circumspection as they use to ring mares in our country, to keep them from
being saillied by stoned horses, clap a Bergamesco lock upon my wife."
Brantome has the following notice of these chastity preservers. "Des temps
du roi Henri il yeut un certain Quinquallier qui apporte une douzaine de
certains engins à la foire de St. Germain pour brider le cas des femmes. Ces
sortes de cadenas estoient en usage à Venise dès devant l'année 1522,
estoient faites de fer et centuroient comme une ceinture, et venoient à se
prendre par le bas, et se fermer à clef, si subtilement faites, qu'il n'estoit pas
possible que la femme en estant bridée und fois, s'en peust jamais prévaloir
pour ce doux plaisir, n'ayant que quelques petits trous menus pour servir à
pisser."218
An endeavour was made to introduce these Bernasco padlocks into France
during the reign of Henry II., and a shop was opened by an Italian at the fair
of St. Germain, where they were publicly sold, and in such numbers, that
the French gallants, becoming alarmed, threatened to throw the vendor into
the Seine, if he did not pack up his merchandise and decamp, which he
immediately did for fear that the menace might be put in execution.
Voltaire describes the Cadenas as originating with Pluto, who, jealous of his
wife Proserpine, was advised:
Qu'un cadenas, de la structure nouvelle
Fut le garant de sa fidélité,
A la vertu par la force asservie,
Plus ne sera l'amant favorisé.
En un moment, feux, enclumes, fourneaux
Sont préparés aux gouffres infernaux;
Tisiphone, de ces lieux, serrurière,
Au cadenas met la main, la première,
Elle l'achève et des mains de Pluton
Proserpine reçut ce triste don,
Or ce secret aux enfers inventé
Chez les humains tôt après fut porté
Et depuis ce temps dans Venise et dans Rome
Il n'est pédant, bourgeois, ou gentilhomme
Qui pour garder l'honneur de sa maison
De cadenas n'ait sa provision.219

This sage advice, a loud applause

From all the damned assembly draws;
And straight, by order of the State,
Was registered on brass by fate;
That moment, in the shades below,
They anvils beat and bellows blow.
Tisiphoned, the blacksmith's trade
Well understood; the locks she made:
Proserpina, from Pluto's hand
Receiving, wore it by command.
This lock, which hell could frame alone,
Soon to the human race was known;
In Venice, Rome, and all about it,
No gentlemen or cit's without it.220

We shall close this our third essay with the amusing summary of anti-
aphrodisiacal remedies, as given by Rabelais.
"You say," said the physician Rondibilis to Panurge, "that you feel in you the pricking stings of
sensuality, by which you are stirred up to venery. I find in our faculty of medicine, and we have
founded our opinion therein upon the deliberate resolution and final decision of the ancient Platonics,
that carnal concupiscence is cooled and quelled five several ways:—

"Firstly. By the means of wine. I shall easily believe that quoth Friar John, for when I am well
whittled with the juice of the grape, I care for nothing else, so I may sleep. When I say, quoth
Rondibilis, that wine abateth lust, my meaning is, wine immoderately taken; for by intemperance,
proceeding from the excessive drinking of strong liquor, there is brought upon the body of such a
swill-down bouser, a chillness in the blood, a slackening in the sinews, a dissipation of the generative
seed, a numbness and hebetation of the senses, with a perversive wryness and convulsion of the
muscles, all which are great lets and impediments to the act of generation. Hence it is that Bacchus,
the god of bibbers, tipplers, and drunkards, is most commonly painted beardless and clad in a
woman's habit, as a person altogether effeminate, or like a libbed eunuch. Wine, nevertheless, taken
moderately worketh quite contrary effects, as is implied by the old proverb, which saith,—That
Venus taketh cold, when not accompanied by Ceres and Bacchus.221 This opinion is of great
antiquity as appeareth by the testimony of Diodorus the Sicilian, and confirmed by Pausanias, and it
is usually held among the Lampsacians, that Don Priapus was the son of Bacchus and Venus.

"Secondly. The fervency of lust is abated by certain drugs, plants herbs and roots, which make the
taker cold, maleficiated, unfit for, and unable to perform the act of generation; as hath often been
experimented by the water-lily, Heraclea, Agnus-Castus, willow-twigs, hemp-stalks, woodbine,
honeysuckle, tamarisk, chastetree, mandrake, bennet keebugloss, the skin of a hippopotamus, and
many other such, which, by convenient doses proportioned to the peccant humour and constitution of
the patient, being duly and seasonably received within the body—what by their elementary virtues on
the one side, and peculiar properties on the other, do either benumb, mortify and beclumpse with
cold, the prolific semence, or scatter and disperse the spirits which ought to have gone along with,
and conducted the sperm to the places destined and appointed for its reception,—or lastly, shut up,
stop and obstruct the way, passages, and conduits, through which the seed should have expelled,
evacuated, and ejected. We have, nevertheless, of those ingredients, which, being of a contrary
operation, heat the blood, bind the nerves, unite the spirits, quicken the senses, strengthen the
muscles, and thereby rouse up, provoke, excite and enable a man to the vigorous accomplishment of
the feat of amorous dalliance. I have no need of those, quoth Panurge, God be thanked and you, my

good master. Howsoever, I pray you, take no exception or offence at these my words; for what I have
said was not out of any ill-will I did hear to you, the Lord, he knows.

Thirdly. The ardour of lechery is very much subdued and mated by frequent labour and continual
toiling. For by painful exercises and laborous working so great a dissolution is brought upon the
whole body, that the blood which runneth alongst the channels of the vein thereof for the
nourishment and alimentation of each of its members, had neither time, leisure, nor power to afford
the seminal resudation or superfluity of the third concoction, which nature most carefully reserves for
the conservation of the individual, whose preservation she more heedfully regardeth than the
propagation of the species and the multiplication of human kind. Whence it is that Diana is said to be
chaste, because she is never idle, but always busied about hunting. For the same reason was a camp,
or leaguer of old called—Castrum,222 as if they would have said—Castum; because the soldiers,
wrestlers, runners, throwers of the bar, and other such like athletic champions, as are usually seen in a
military circumvallation, do incessantly travail and turmoil, and are in a perpetual stir and agitation.
To this purpose, also, Hippocrates writeth in his book, De Aere, Aqua et Locis:—That in his time
there were people in Scythia as impotent as eunuchs in the discharge of a venerean exploit; because
that, without any cessation, pause or respite, they were never from off horseback, or otherwise,
assiduously employed in some troublesome and molesting drudgery.

On the other part, in opposition and repugnancy hereto, the philosophers say, that idleness is the
mother of luxury. When it was asked Ovid, why Ægisthus became an adulterer? he made no other
answer than this, Because he was idle.223 Who were able to rid the world of loitering and idleness
might easily disappoint Cupid224 of all his designes, aims, engines and devices and so disable and
appal him, that his bow, quiver, and darts should from thenceforth be a mere needless load and
burthen to him; for that it could not then lie in his power to strike or wound any of either sex with all
the arms he had. He is not, I believe so expert an archer as that he can hit the cranes flying in the air,
or yet the young stags skipping through the thicket, as the Parthians knew well how to do; that is to
say, people moiling, stirring, and hurrying up and down, restless and without repose. He must have
those hushed, still, quiet, lying at a stay, lither and full of ease, whom he is able to pierce with all his
arrows. In conformation thereof, Theophrastus being asked on a time, What kind of beast or thing he
judged a toyish, wanton love to be? he made answer, That it was a passion of idle and sluggish
spirits.224 From which pretty description of tickling-tricks, that of Diogenes, the Cynic, was not very
discrepant when he defined lechery—The occupation of folk destitute of all other occupation. For
this cause the Sicyonian sculptor Canachus,225 being desirous to give us to understand that slowth,
drowsiness, negligence, and laziness, were the prime guardians and governesses of ribaldry, made the
statue of Venus, not standing, as other stone-cutters had used to do, but sitting.

Fourthly. The tickling pricks of incontinency are blunted by an eager study; for from thence
proceedeth an incredible resolution of the spirits, that oftentimes there do not remain so many behind
as may suffice to push and thrust forwards the generative resudation to the places thereto
appropriated, and therewithal inflate the cavernous nerve, whose office is to ejaculate the moisture
for the propagation of human progeny. Lest you should think it is not so, be pleased but to
contemplate a little the form, fashion, and carriage of a man exceeding earnestly set upon some
learned meditation and deeply plunged therein, and you shall see how all the arteries of his brains are
stretched forth, and bent like the string of a cross-bow, the more promptly, dexterously and copiously
to suppeditate, furnish and supply him with store of spirits, sufficient to replenish and fill up the
ventricles, seats, tunnels, mansions, receptacles and cellules of common sense—of the imagination
apprehension, and fancy—of the ratiocination, arguing, and resolution—as likewise, of the memory,
recordation, and remembrance; and with great alacrity, nimbleness, and agility, to run, pass and

course from one to the other, through those pipes, windings, and conduits, which to skilful anatomists
are perceivable at the end of the wonderful net, where all the arteries close in a terminating point;
which arteries taking their rise and origin from the left capsule of the heart, bring, through several
circuits, ambages, and anfractuosities, the vital spirits, to subtilize and refine them in the ætherial
purity of animal spirits. Nay, in such a studiously meditating, musing person, you may espy so
extravagant raptures of one, as it were out of himself, that all his natural faculties for that time will
seem to lie suspended from each their proper charge and office, and his exterior senses to be at a
stand. In a word, you cannot choose than think, that he is by an extraordinary ecstasy quite
transported out of what he was or should be; and that Socrates did not speak improperly when he
said, That philosophy was nothing else but a meditation upon death. This possibly is the reason why
Democritus226 deprived himself of the sense of seeing, prizing, at a much lower rate, the loss of his
sight, than the diminution of his contemplation which he had frequently found disturbed by the
vagrant flying-out strayings of his unsettled and roving eyes.227 Therefore is it that Pallas, the
goddess of wisdom, tutoress and guardianess of such as are diligently studious and painfully
industrious, is and hath been still accounted a virgin. The Muses upon the same consideration are
esteemed perpetual maids: and the Graces, for the same reason, have been held to continue in a
sempiternal pudicity.

I remember to have read that Cupid,227 on a time, being asked by his mother Venus, why he did not
assault and set upon the Muses, his answer was, that he found them so fair, so neat, so wise, so
learned, so modest, so discreet, so courteous, so virtuous, and so continually busied and employed,—
one in the speculation of the stars,—another in the supputation of numbers,—the third in the
dimension of geometrical quantities,—the fourth in the composition of heroic poems,—the fifth in
the jovial interludes of a comic strain,—the sixth in the stately gravity of the tragic vein,—the
seventh in the melodious disposition of musical airs,—the eighth in the completest manner of writing
histories and books on all sorts of subjects, and—the ninth in the mysteries, secrets, and curiosities of
all sciences, faculties, disciplines and arts whatsoever, whether liberal or mechanic,—that
approaching near unto them he unbent his bow, shut his quiver, and extinguished his torch, through
mere shame and fear that by mischance he might do them any hurt or prejudice. Which done, he
thereafter put off the fillet wherewith his eyes were bound, to look them in the face, and to hear their
melody and poetic odes. There took he the greatest pleasure in the world, that many times he was
transported with their beauty and pretty behaviour, and charmed asleep by their harmony, so far was
he from assaulting them or interrupting their studies. Under this article may be comprised what
Hippocrates wrote in the afore-cited treatise concerning the Scythians, as also that in a book of his
intituled, Of Breeding and Production, where he hath affirmed all such men to be unfit for generation
as have their parotid arteries cut—whose situation is behind the ears—for the reason given already,
when I was speaking of the resolution of the spirits, and of that spiritual blood, whereof the arteries
are the sole and proper receptacles; and that likewise he doth maintain a large portion of the
parastatic liquor to issue and descend from the brains and backbone.

Fifthly. By the too frequent reiteration of the act of venery. There did I wait for you, quoth Panurge,
and shall willingly apply it to myself, whilst any one that pleaseth may, for me, make use of any of
the four preceding. That is the very same thing, quoth Friar John, which Father Scyllion,228 Prior of
St. Victor, at Marseilles, calleth maceration and taming of the flesh. I am of the same opinion, and so
was the hermit of Saint Radegonde, a little above Chinon; for, quoth he, the hermits of Thebaïde can
no way more aptly or expediently macerate and bring down the pride of their bodies, daunt and
mortify their lecherous sensuality, or depress and overcome the stubbornness and rebellion of the
flesh, than by dufling and fanfreluching five and twenty or thirty times a day."

FOOTNOTES
1 For a representation of the Egyptian "Phallus" see Plate I., figures 1, 2, and 3.
These are taken from the "Recueil d'Antiquites Egyptiennes" by the Comte De
Caylus, who, speaking of the first of them, observes: "Cette figure représente
le plus terrible Phallus qu'on ait vû, proportion gardée, sur aucun ouvrage. On
n'ignore point la vénération que les Egyptiens avaient pour cet emblême, il est
vrai; mais je doute que cette nation sage et peu outrée dans sa conduite eût
consacré dans les premiers siécles, c'est a dire, avant le régne des Ptolemées,
une pareille figure."
2 Historia de los Incas. Cap. VI.
3 In the church of St. Peter's at Rome, is kept, en secret, a large stone emblem
of the creative power, of a very peculiar shape, on which are engraved Ζευς
Σωτηρ. Only persons who have great interest can get a sight of it. Is it from
this stone having some peculiar virtue that those preux chevaliers, the
cardinals, keep it so closely? Perhaps they choose to monopolize the use of it?
I never saw it, but I know that it was at St Peter's.—Higgins.
4 See Plate II., figure 1. This figure of the Lingham presents a kind of Trinity,
the vase represents Vishnu, from the middle of which rises a column rounded
at the top representing Siva, and the whole rests upon a pedestal typifying
Brahma. From the Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, par M. Sonnerat,
depuis 1774 jusqu'en 1781. Tom. I., p. 179.
5 Voyage aux Indes et à la Chine., par Sonnerat, depuis 1774 jusqu'en 1781;
Tom. I. liv. 2.
6 See Plate III., figures 1, 2, 3, and 4.
7 Henry O'Brien, Round Towers of Ireland. London, 1834. Chapter viii.
8 See Plate IV., figure 1.
9 Samuel II., chap. vi., v. 20, 21, 22, 23.
10 The indispensable and inseparable appendages to the male organ have thus
been eulogized by Giov. Francesco Lazzarelli in his poem entitled, La
Cicceide, p. 120.

LE PREROGATIVI DE'TESTICOLI.

Gran sostegni dei mondo, almi C ......
Del celeste Fattor, opre ingegnose;
Da caricare i piccoli cannoni,
Ond' armata va l'uom, Palle focose:
Robusti, anchorè teneri Palloni,
Con cui guiocan tra lor, mariti e spose;

Del corpo uman spermatici Embrioni;
De' venerei piacer fonti amorose;
Magazzini vitali, ove Natura
L'uman seme riposto, a' figli suoi
D' assicurar la succession procura! etc.
11 Genesis, chap. xxiv. v. 2, 3.
12 Genesis, chap. xlvii. v. 29.
13 Mémoires sur l'Egypte, publiés pendant les Campagne de Bonaparte,
Partie, 2, p. 193.
14 The Latin text of the law is as follows:—"Si mulier stuprata lege cum illo
agere velit, membro virili sinistra prehenso et dextra reliquos sanctorum
imposita, juret, super illas quod is per vim se, isto membro, vitiaverit."—
Voyage dans le Département du Finisterre, Tom. iii., p. 233.
15

Hunc locum tibi dedico consacroque, Priape,
Quæ domus tua, Lampsaei est, quaque silva, Priape.
Nam te præcipue in suis urbibus colit, ora
Hellespontia, cæteris ostreosior oris.—Catullus, Carm. xviii.

16 See Plate II., figure 2.
17 From possessing such an article of virtu, his Eminence must surely have
been of the opinion of Cardinal Bembo—that there is no sin below the navel.
18

Falce minax et parte tui majore, Priape,
Ad fontem quæso, dic mihi, qua sit iter.—Priapeia Carm.

19 See note (21), p. 11.
20 See S. Augustine, Civ. Dei., lib. 6, cap. 9, and Lactantius De falsa religione.
lib. i.
21 See Plate I., figure 4. This phallus was found at Pompeii over a baker's
door.
22 Thus his statue was placed in orchards as a scare-crow to drive away
superstitious thieves, as well as children and birds.

Pomarii tutela, diligens rubro
Priape, furibus minare mutino.—Priapeia Carm. 73.

23 Ind. Antiq. ii., p, 361.
24 Ind. Antiq., vol. I., p. 247.
25 Voyage dans la Chine par Avril, Liv. iii., p. 194.

26 Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i., p. 269.
27 Worship of Priapus.
28 Ibid., p 48.
29 For some ingenious and learned observations on the Tau or Crux Ansata see
Classical Journal, No. 39, p. 182.
30 Chap. ix., v. 3. "And the Lord said unto him: Go through the midst of the
city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the forehead of the
men that sigh and cry for the abominations that be done in the midst thereof."
31 For a description of some of the above-mentioned Crosses, see Plate V.,
also "Voyage dans la basse et la haute-Egypte pendant les campagnes de
Bonaparte, 1802 et 1829," par Denon—Planches 48, 78.
32 This city was the birth place of the deity Priapus, whose orgies were there
constantly celebrated. Alexander the Great, in his Persian expedition, resolved
to destroy Lampsacus on account of its many vices, or rather from a jealousy
of its adherence to Persia; but it was saved by the artifice of the philosopher
Anaxamenes, who, having heard that the king had sworn to refuse whatever he
should ask him, begged him to destroy the city.
33 Journal d'Henri III. par l'Etoile. Tom. 5.
34 Historie Religieuse du Calendrier, p. 420.
35 Johannis Goropii Becani, Origines Antwerpianæ, 1569, lib. i., p.p. 26 and
101.
36 The foreskins, still extant, of the Saviour, are reckoned to be twelve in
number. One was in the possession of the monks of Coulombs; another at the
Abbey of Charroux; a third at Hildesheim, in Germany; a fourth at Rome, in
the Church of St. Jean-de-Latran; a fifth at Antwerp; a sixth at Puy-en-Velay, in
the Church of Notre Dame, &c., &c. So much for relics!
37 Dulaure, Singularités Historiques de l'Historie de Paris, p. 77. Paris, 1825.
38 Letter of Sir W. Hamilton prefixed to Payne Knight's "Worship of Priapus."
For a representation of the ancient, Ex voto, in silver, the size of the original
see Plate VI., figure 1. It is copied from an additional plate inserted by M.
Panizzi, late librarian of the British Museum, in the fly-leaf of Payne Knight's
"Worship of Phallus."
39 To these the canon law adds sorcery, ligature or point-tying.
40 Zachais, Quæst. medico. leg. lib. II., tit. I, quæst. I.
41 See Lectures on Comparative Anatomy by Sir Everard Home, Bart. Vol. III.,
p. 166. London 1823.
42 Lib. I., Epigram. 91.
43 Juvenal Sat. I., vv. 204, 105.

44 Orlando Furioso, Can. I, stanz. 49, 60.
45 Rapport, Tom. I., p. 335.
46 Sir Charles Morgan, Philos. of Morals, p. 25.
47 Nosographie philosophique.
48 Medical Essays published by a society in Edinburgh, vol. I., p. 270. Case
reported by W. Cockburn, M.D.
49 Rapport, tome II., p. 422.
50 Essays, Book I., chap. xx. Cotton's translation.
51 Hippocrates de Aer: aqua et loco, 210.
52 Treatise on the Venereal Disease.
53 Comment. de Aer: aqua et loco, 210.
54 Voltaire, Pucelle d'Orléans, Chant. xii.
55 Bigarrures du Seigneur des Accords.
56 Herodotus Enterpe clxxxii.
57 De Legibus, lib. ii.
58 Ecloga viii.
59 Amor., lib. iii., Eleg. 6.
60 De Asino Aureo, lib. ii., v. 3.
61 Tacitus Annal., lib. iv., 22.
62 Lib. v., Sentent, tit. 23.
63 De rebus gestis Francorum, lib. 4. cap. 94.
64 Histoire des Français.
65 Nominated to the Bishopric of Evreux by Henry IV. of France. His
favourite authors were Rabelais and Montaigne.
66 Demonologie, 1603, Book I., Chap. III., p. 12.
67 "Hercules, puer, L. Virgines, una nocte, gravidus reddit."—Cœlius, lib. 14,
cap. 8.
68 Traite premier de la dissolution de Mariage pour l'impuissance et froideur
de l'homme, ou de la Femme, par Antoine Hotman, p. 63.
69 Tableau de l'Amour considéré dans l'état du Mariage, par II., chap. 2, art. 3.
70 Art Portugal. rem. F.
71 Boileau Despréaux, Satires, Satire VIII.

72 Willick's Lectures on Diet and Regimen, p. 538, et seq.
73 From μανδρα, relating to cattle, and αγαρον, baneful, injurious.
74 Genesis, Chap. xxx., v. 14, 15, 16, 17. The last verse must be considered as
decisive of the efficacy of the mandrake.
75 Solomon's Song, chap. vii. v. 13.
76 See the word Dudaïm, in Dr. Kitto's Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature. The
learned doctor has given a sketch of the plant Mandragora, a copy of which the
reader will find in plate VI.
77 Onkelos was a celebrated rabbin contemporary with St. Paul, and to whom
the Targum, that is, a translation or paraphrase of the Holy Scriptures, is
attributed.
78 Lib. IV., cap. 76.
79 Quoted by Oct. Celsius in his "Hierobotanicon," Part I., par. 5. art. Dudaim,
from Epiphan: Physiolog. c. 4.
80 Pliny's "Natural History," Vol. IV., p. 397 (Bohn's Classical Library).
81 Columella De hortorum Cultu., v. 19, 20.
82 See a manuscript Interrogatory still preserved in the "Bibliothèque
Nationale," Fonds de Baluze, Rouleau 5.
83 See "De l'imposture des Diables," par Jacques Grévin, Tom. IV., p. 359.
84 From Weir "De Mag: demonia:" Cours Complet d'agriculture par l'Abbé
Rosier, Tom. VI., p. 401.
85 Récollections des choses merveilleuses Advenues en notre temps par
George Chastelain, Edition de Coustelier, p. 150.
86 Lettres d'Amabed, Vol. XXXIV., p. 261. Edition Beuchot, Paris.
87 Mandragola, Atto II. Scena 6. See also La Fontaine's tale of "La
Mandragore," founded upon the above comedy.
88 See Warburton on Shakespear's Othello, Act I., Scene 8.

"By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks."

89 See Speed's Historie of Great Britaine. Richard III. Book II., page 913 folio
edition, 1632.

90 Exercitatio de Rachelis Deliciis, 4to, 1678.
91 Atlantica illustrata, 1733.
92 Hierobotanicon, 1745.
93 "Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter, a.d., 1697."

94 Orchis is a Greek word signifying testicle, a name given by the ancients to
this plant on account of the supposed resemblance of its root to that organ.
95 Eustathii Commentarii ad Homerum, Vol. I., p. 325, 403-9. Editio Lipsiæ,
1827.
96 Juliani Calixenæ Epistola.
97 "Amatorio poculo furorem versus, quum aliquot libros per intervalla
conscripserat."
98 Epist. dissuas: ad Rufinum C. 22. Tom XII. p. 245, ad Varon.
99 Remarks on the life and poems of Lucretius, p. vi. (Bohn's Classical
Library).
100 Probably to Anticyra, a Greek town situated at the mouth of the river
Sperchius, and reputed to produce the genuine hellebore, recommended by the
ancient physicians as a cure for insanity, whence the well known adage,
"Naviget Anticyram."
101 Sueton. Calig. 50.
102 Juvenal. Sat. vi. v. 614.
103 Hor. Epod Lib. Carm. V. 1703. See also the admirable notes of Dacier and
Sanadon upon the above ode.
104 Disquisitionum Magicarum, Lib. III. Quæstio III. De Amatorio Malaficio,
page 7.
105 Cinq livres de l'imposture et tromperie des diables. Lib. II., p. 216, 1569.
106 De Margarum Daemonomania. Lib. I., Cap. III., p. 27.
107 Æneid, Lib. IV., v. 13, 14, 15, and 16.
108 Pausanias, Græciæ Descriptio, Lib. V., c. 27.
109 In his work "De valetudine tuendâ."
110 Traité universel des drogues simples.
111 The Holy Guide by John Heyden, Gent., φιλόνομος a servant of God and a
Secretary of Nature, Lib. v. p. 61.
112 Ibid., p. 62.
113 Anatomy of Melancholy.
114 Essays, Vol. II., p. 262-3. Translated by Cotton. London, 1743.
115 "Cujus rei istud est argumentum, quod ubi rem veneream exercemus,
tantillo emisse, imbecilles evadimus."—De Genitura.
116 Tome 52, p. 286, et seq.

117 Juvenal, Sat. 6, v. 302. "Ad venerem," says Lubinus in a note on this
passage, "miris modis instigant (i.e., ostreæ), inde turpissimæ illæ bestiæ
(feminæ) ostrea comedebant, ut ad Venerem promptiores essent."
118 De la génération de l'homme, p. 272.
119 Traité des dispenses et de Carême, Paris, 1709, en 12mo, réimprimé trois
fois.
120 Names given to the female slaves or concubines in the harem of the
Sultan.
121 A large province of the Deccan, said to have been famous, in ancient
times, for its diamond mines.
122 That Coryphæus of voluptuaries, George IV., so highly appreciated this
quality in truffles, that his Ministers at the courts of Turin, Naples, Florence,
&c., were specially instructed to forward by a state messenger to the Royal
Kitchen any of those fungi that might be found superior in size, delicacy or
flavour.
123 Physiologie du Gout, par Brillat Savarin, Paris, 1859.
124 Martial, Epigram, lib. xiii. epig. 34.
125 Ducange, Glossaire.
126 J. H. Meibomius de flagrorum usu in Re medica et Venerea, Paris, 1792, p.
125.
127 See Macaronéana, par M. Octave Delepierre, Paris, 1852, p. 3.
128 Thevet, Portraits des Vies des Hommes Illustres, Vol. I., p. 13, fol. edit.,
Paris, 1584.
129 Hume's Hist. of England, Vol. I., p. 348.
130 Dissertatio Inauguralis de Ambra, § iv. p. 36.
131 Medicamentum quod non solum potenter stimulat, sed vel effœtum senem,
pro brevi tempore, ad juventutem iterum restituit. Ibid. § viii., p. 44.
132 Née dans une condition obscure, vouée au libertinage dés sa plus tendre
jeunesse, autant par goût que par état, Made. Du Barry ne put offrir à son
auguste amant, malgré la fleur de la jeunesse et les brillants appas dont elle
étoit encore pourvue, que les restes de la plus vile canaille, de la prostitution."
Vie privée des maîtresses de Louis XV., p. 153.—"You are no doubt curious to
hear an opinion of Madame Du Barri's beauty from the lips of one who has
seen her both in her days of prosperity and after her downfall. She was a
person of small, almost diminutive stature, extremely frail and delicate in
feature, which saved her from being vulgar; but even from the first, she always
wore that peculiarly fane look which she owed to a youth of dissipation, a
maturity of unbounded indulgence. At the period of my visit she was about
thirty-six years of age, but, from her child-like form and delicacy of
countenance, appeared much younger, and her gambades and unrestrained

gestures of supreme delight on having, as she said, quelqu'un à qui parler, did
not seem displaced. Although alone, and evidently not in expectation of
visitors, her toilet was brilliant and recherché, the result of the necessity of
killing time."—"Talleyrand Papers."
133 Espion de la Cour.
134 Gazetier Cuirassé, ou Anecdotes Scandaleuses de la Cour de France.
135 In his "Praxis Medica Admiranda," wherein he also gives the formula of
an electuary ad excitandum tentiginem nulli secundum, p, 295, Observ. XCI.,
as well as a recipe for pills ad Coitûs ignaviam, CXIII., p. 297.
136 Encyclopœdia Perthensis, Article Cachunde.
137 See his Premier Traité de l'homme et de son essentielle anatomie, avec les
éléments et ce qui est en eux, de ses maladies, médicine et absolus remèdes,
etc., Paris, 1588.
138 Cent. 2.
139 See Celius, lib. xiv., cap. 3.
140 Histoire de Ferdinand et Isabelle, Tom. II., 326. Paris, 1766.
141 Biographie Universelle, Art. Wallenstein.
142 Detested by the Parisians, Dubois was the object of innumerable
caricatures, of which the most sanglante was one representing him "à genoux
aux pieds d'une fille de joie qui prenait de ce sale écoulement qui afflige les
femmes, tous les mois, pour lui en rougir sa calotte et le faire Cardinal." See
Erotika Biblion. Paris, 1792, p. 52.
143 Mémoires du Cardinal Dubois, vol. I., p. 3.
144 Ælius Tetrabilis, I., Disc. Chap. 32 and 33.
145 Browne's Travels in Africa, etc., p. 343.
146 La génération de l'homme, ou tableau de l'amour conjugal. Tom. I., p. 276.
147 Ibid., p. 232.
148 Venette, Génération de l'homme, Tom. I., p. 279.
149 De cultu hortorum, v. 108.
150 Moretum, v. 85.
151 Mag. Nat., Lib. vii.
152 Mala Bacchica tanta olim in amoribus prævalerunt, ut coronæ ex illis
statuæ Bacchi ponerentur.
153 Surag radis ad coitum summe facit: si quis comedat aut infusionem bibat,
membrum subite erigitur. Leo Afric., Lib, IX., cap. ult., p. 302.

154 Gomez (Ferdinand) of Ciudad Real, a celebrated physician, born 1388,
died 1457.
155 Mag. Nat. Lib. VII., c. 16.
156 Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales chap. LXI., p.
360, Burgos, 1578.
157 Travels in Africa, &c., p. 341.
158 Lignac. A physical view of man and woman in a state of marriage. Vol. I.,
p. 190.
159 Turcæ ad Levenzinum contra Comitem Ludovicum Souches pugnantes,
opio exaltati turpiter cæsi, et octo mille numero occisi, mentulas rigidas tulere.
Christen. Opium Hist.
160 It was, perhaps, the knowledge of this fact that suggested to La Fontaine
the lines:—

"Un muletier à ce jeu
Vaut trois rois."

"To play at which game, I'm sure it is clear,
Three kings are no match for one muleteer."

161 Histoire Naturelle du Genre Humain. Tom. II., p. 123.
162 Cabanis, Rapport, &c., Tom. II., p. 89.
163 Essais philosophiques sur les mœurs de divers animaux étrangers.
164

"The care on thee depending
Hath fed upon the body of my father,
Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold;
Other less fine in carat is more precious,
Preserving life in medicine potable."
Henry IV., sec. part, act iv. sc. v.

165 Lettres sur François Rabelais. Let. II.
166 De Pœnitentiâ Decretorum, lib. xix.
167 See Millengen's "Curiosities of Medical Experience," art. Flagellation Vol.
II., p. 47 et seq.
168 Medic., Lib. III., art. 12.
169 See Richter, Opuscula medica Col. I., p. 273, "Qui novit ex stimulantium
fonte, cardiaca, aphrodisiaca, diaphoretica, diuretica aliaque non infirmi
ordinis medicamenta peti, perspicit plenius quam larga verberibus bene
merendi sit, uti præsertim in torpore nervorum, paralysi, impotentia ad
Venerem et naturalium excretionum eluxit."

170 Author of the work entitled, "De flagrorum usu in re venerea," Lug. Bat.,
1639, with the motto:

"Delicias pariunt Veneri crudelia flagra,
Dum nocet, illa juvat, dum juvat, ecce nocet.

"Lo! cruel stripes the sweets of love ensure,
And painful pleasures pleasing pains procure."

171 Millingen, "Curiosities of Medical Experience." Vol. II., p. 52.
172 To this personage may justly be applied the French epitaph upon one who
died under similar circumstances:

"Je suis mort de l'amour enterpris
Entre les jambes d'une dame,
Bien heureux d'avoir rendu l'âme,
Au même lieu où je l'ai pris."

173 See his work, contra Astrologos, Lib. III., cap. 27.
174 Petri Abœlardi Abbatis Rugensis et Heloissæ Abbatissæ Paracletensis
Epistolæ. Epist. I., p. 10.
175 Ibid., Epist. III., p. 81.
176 See Meibomius, p. 43, note a. Edit. Paris, 1792, 12mo.
177 Name given to persons having only one testicle.

178 Œuvres, Tom. I, p. 283. Ed. 1714.
179 Travels in Siberia in 1661, Tom. I., p. 319.
180 Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales. Art. Pollution.
181 Confessions, Tom. I.
182 De Nasturcio mira refert Dioscoridas I., 2, c. 185.
183 Satyricon, Caput xxxviii.
183 Pract. part. ii. cap. de passioni membré-génital.
184 Ducatiana ii., b. 505.
185 Curiosities of Medical Experience, vol. II., p. 55.
186 Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 3, memb. 3, subj. 5.
188 Pornodidascalus seu Colloquium Muliebre Petri Aretini ingeniossimi et
ferè incomparabilis virtutum et vitiorum demonstratoris: De Astu nefario,
horrendisque dolis, quibus impudicæ mulieres juventuti incautæ insidiantur.—
Francofurti. Anno 1623.
188 Verum omni istâ sciencâ (magica) (says Lucretia) nunquam potui movere
cor hominis solâ vero salivâ mea (id est ampleux et basiis) inungens tam
furiosè furere tam bestialiter obstupefieri plurimos coegi ut instar idoil me
Amoresque meos adorarint.—p. 47-8.
190 Othello, Act iii. Sc. 10.
191 Sir Thos. Browne's Works, Vol. III., p. 89. Bohn's Edit.
192 Origen, one of the Fathers of the Church, born in a.d. 185, is a melancholy
proof how far the reason may be perverted by erroneous views in religious
matters; for according to Fulgos, "ut corpus ab omni venerea labe mundum
servaret, omnique suspicione careret, sectis genitalibus membris, eunuchum se
fecit." He, however, lived long enough to condemn his error. See his 15th
sermon upon St. Matthew, cap. 19, v. 12; his work against Celsus, lib. 7; and
his 7th Treatise upon the 18th and 19th Chapters of St. Matthew.
193 Baldassar Timœus Cas. med. Lib. XIX., Salacitas nitro curata.
194 Historie Mundi, Lib. XXVI., c. 7.
195 The medical school of Salerno (latine Salernum) was founded by Robert
Guiscard at the end of the 11th century; and about the year 1100 a collection of
medical aphorisms, was composed in Latin verse by a certain John of Milan,
and published under the title of Medicina Salertina. Of this poem, which
originally consisted of 1239 verses, only 373, or about a third, are extant.
These were published at Paris in 1625 by Réné Moreau; in 1653 it was
travestied by L. Martin; paraphrased by Bruzen de la Martinière in 1743, and
by Dr. Levacher de la Feuverie in 1782.
196 De tuto cantharidum in medicinâ usu interno.

197 Arnaud de Villeneuve was one of the luminaries of the 13th century, being
distinguished for his profound knowledge of medicine, chemistry, astrology,
and theology. He discovered the sulphuric, muriatic and nitric acids, and was
the first to compose alcohol and the essence of terebinth or turpentine.
198 Traité des dispenses du carême.
199 "Any man," said Abernethy, the celebrated and eccentric surgeon, "that
drinks coffee and soda water, and smokes cigars, may lie with my wife."
200 De Aer: Aquā et Locis. Liber, caput x.
201 Comment. in Boerh. Aphor. sec. 1063, Vol. III.
202 De Machinis, C. IV.
203 No. 206.
204 Exercitatio de aciá, Cap. 4, et seq.
205 Odyssey VIII. line 477.
206 Introd. to Hesiod, cap. VI. p. 14. Edit. Plautin, 1603, in voce αοιδος.
207 Annals of Gallantry.
208 Celsus has described the operation, in detail. Medicina, lib. VII. c. 25.
209 Juvenal, Sat. VI. v. 379-80.
210 Ibid., v. 73-74.
211 Martialis, lib. XIV. Ep. 215.
212 Martialis, lib. VII. Ep. 81.
213 Holiday's Juvenal, Sat. VI., illustr. 11, note "Unbutton a Comedian." For a
copy see plate VII., fig. 1. and 2.
214 Monumenti Antichi inediti. Rome, 1767, fol., p. IV. c. 8, p. 247, fig. 188.
215 Martial, Lib. IX. Epig. 28, v. 12.
216 Travels in Africa and Egypt.
217 "There (in the arsenal) are also various whimsical bolts and locks with
which he (Carrera) used to keep his concubines confined." Travels in Italy. See
The World, vol. 18, p. 154.
218 Brantome, Dames Galantes, tom. iii., p. 138.
219 Le Cadenas. This poem was composed by the author when he was only
eighteen years of age, and it was occasioned by a lady who was in the
circumstances here spoken of.
220 Dr Smollett's translation, Vol. XXXII.
221 Sine Baccho et Cerere friget Venus.

222 "Castrum quasi Castum, Castra," says Isidorus in his Etymologies, Lib.
IX., "sunt ubi miles steterit: dicta autem, castra, quasi casta, eò quod ibi
castraretur libido." A castle from castrating of lust.
223

Quæritur Ægystus quare sit factus adulter
In promptu causa est: desidiosus.—De Remed. Amoris.

224 "Otia si tollas, periere Cupidinis artes."
225 See Pausanias's "Corinthians."
226 Vide Cicero, lib. V., Tusc. Questions and Plutarch's Treatise of Curiosity. It
must, however, be observed, that this story is wholly incredible, inasmuch as
the same writers affirm that Democritus employed his leisure in writing books
and in dissecting the bodies of animals, neither of which could very well be
effected without the eyes.
227 In Lucian, in the Dialogue entitled—"Venus and Cupid."
228 The story itself is the same as that related by Poggio (Bracciolini) of a
hermit of Pisa. "Eremita," says he, "qui Pisis morabatur, tempore Petri
Gambacurtæ, meretricem noctu in suam ce lulan deduxit, vigesiesque ea nocte
mulierem cognovit; semper cum moveret clunes, ut crimen fugeret luxuriæ
vulgaribus verbis dicens: 'domati, carne cattizella;' hoc est, doma te, miserrima
caro!"

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