John Davenport

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 105seeds 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, and129 that there may not be produced a greater quantity than is requisite for the support of the body. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 112wherewith 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. ”

“ 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. ”