Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction Part 9

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 pa.s.sions may, to a great extent, be allayed by directing the juvenile mind to either of those studies, according as the const.i.tution 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 pract.i.tioner, 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 nymphae_ were given, night and morning, during the s.p.a.ce 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, cuc.u.mbers, 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 s.e.xual appet.i.te.

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 extinguis.h.i.+ng concupiscence; and it was a favourite maxim of the medical school of Salernum[195] 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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.serts 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 Villeneuve[197] exaggerates, almost to a ridiculous degree, the virtue of the agnus castus, a.s.serting as he does, that the surest way to preserve chast.i.ty, 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 n.o.bleman 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 p.e.n.i.s. Alexander Benedictus declares that a topaz having been previously rubbed against the right t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e 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 s.e.x diebus. Utere mentha sicca c.u.m aceto: genitalia illinita succo hyoscyami aut cicutae coitus appet.i.tum sedant."

It has even been a.s.serted that coffee possesses the same property. In the year 1695 it was maintained, in a thesis at the Ecole de Medicine at Paris, that the daily use of coffee deprived both man and woman of the generative power. M. Hecquet[198] 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 s.e.xual 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 a.n.a.logous 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 s.e.xual parts, and acquires such a length as to descend below the calves of the legs. The mode 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 s.e.x.

Continual exercise on horseback was considered by Hippocrates[200] 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 s.e.xual appet.i.te 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 circ.u.mcision, 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. Rhodius[204] 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 chast.i.ty and the restraints of honour appeared scarcely sufficient to hinder the s.e.xes 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 G.o.ddess 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.dized 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 l.u.s.t, 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 pa.s.sed through it, remaining there until the cicatrizing of the hole; when that took place, a rather large ring was then subst.i.tuted, 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 praetoribus."[209]

"But should the dame in music take delight, The public singer is disabled quite; In vain the praetor 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 comdi fibula. Sunt, quae Chrysogonum cantare vetent."[210]

"Take from Chrysogonus the power to sing, Loose, at vast prices, the comedian's ring."

"Dic mihi, simpliciter, comdis et cithardis, Fibula, quod praestat?... 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 vest.i.t Ut sit comdis omnibus, una satis Hunc ego credideram (nam saepe lavamur in unum) Sollicitum voci parcere, Flacce, suae; Dum ludit media populo spectante palaestra, 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 insieme) che esso sollecito avesse cura delle sua voce; lotta in mezzo la palestra a vista del popolo, la fibula casco 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 b.u.t.ton, 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 Praetor who set forth playes for the delight of the people, buying youths for that purpose, and that they might not, by l.u.s.t, spoil their voice, their overseers closed their shame with a case of metal having a sharp spike of the same metal pa.s.sing 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 circ.u.mcision.

"The form of the first, and also another fas.h.i.+on, the curious reader may here see (being without any immodestie) as they are represented by Pignerius, _de servis_, p. 82. But whatsoever the fas.h.i.+on or invention was, the trust was but fond that was committed to them, seeing that the art of l.u.s.t 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 n.o.bleman, 'it is that thou art married; but it is some musician's or fencer's b.a.s.t.a.r.d that is born under thy lordly canopie.'"[213]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VII., Figs. 1-2, PHALLIC FIBULae.]

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 sanct.i.ty, 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 quant.i.ty 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 s.e.x 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 s.e.xual organ, or closing the l.a.b.i.a of the v.a.g.i.n.a 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 pa.s.sing 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 Circa.s.sians 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 chast.i.ty 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 Chast.i.ty_.

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 princ.i.p.al accusations brought against him was the employment of the _Girdle of Chast.i.ty_, for his mistresses, and it is said by Misson[217]

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_ a 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 circ.u.mspection 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 chast.i.ty preservers. "Des temps du roi Henri il yeut un certain Quinquallier qui apporte une douzaine de certains engins a la foire de St. Germain pour brider le cas des femmes. Ces sortes de cadenas estoient en usage a Venise des devant l'annee 1522, estoient faites de fer et centuroient comme une ceinture, et venoient a se prendre par le bas, et se fermer a clef, si subtilement faites, qu'il n'estoit pas possible que la femme en estant bridee und fois, s'en peust jamais prevaloir pour ce doux plaisir, n'ayant que quelques pet.i.ts trous menus pour servir a p.i.s.ser."[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: