Aphrodisiac

“ All exercise, often even walking, may be a sexual stimulant, and it is scarcely necessary to add that powerful stimulation of the skin in the sexual sphere, and more especially of the nates, is often a more effective aphrodisiac than any drug, whether the irritation is purely mechanical, as by flogging, or mechanico-chemical, as by urtication or the application of nettles. ”

“ Every Physician of any reasonable amount of practice frequently has cases of weakness, mental and physical, demanding the exhibition of peculiar tonic stimulants and aphrodisiacs, that shall be certain in effect, yet non-irritant or reactionary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even after coitus interruptus, if it can be prolonged for a period long enough for the woman to attain full and complete satisfaction, she is enabled to experience what she may describe as a feeling of intoxication, lasting for several hours. It is in the action of the orgasm itself, and the vascular, secretory, and metabolic activities set up by the psychic and nervous influence of coitus with a beloved person, that we must seek the chief key to the effects produced by coitus on women, however these effects may possibly be still further heightened by the actual absorption of semen. ”

“ In the matter of sexual abstinence, for example, the majority of physicians are to-day agreed upon the view that such abstinence in general does no harm; and that those, if any, whose health may be unfavourably influenced by sexual abstinence, constitute at most a very small minority. In my own view, the persons who may suffer from this cause are those affected with hyperæsthesia of the sexual impulse, and in whom the impulse is dominant to such a degree that it interferes with all their alternative activities. ”

“ Conversely, sexual excitement increases the explosive force of the bladder, the desire to urinate is aroused, and in women the sexual orgasm, when very acute and occurring with a full bladder, is occasionally accompanied, alike in savage and civilized life, by an involuntary and sometimes full and forcible expulsion of urine. ”

“ The violent manual efforts made by a young sensualist to procure the sexual orgasm for the third or fourth time continuously, I have known to be of that degree that irritation has been communicated to the whole length of the urethra, extending even to the bladder; and retention of urine, in the instance I allude to, ensued, and required much attention before it could be subdued. Excessive intercourse with females will give rise to the same effects ”

“ There are multitudes of "nervous" women, hysterical even, who are restored to health, and kept in good health, through the stimulative effects of satisfactory coitus and the absorption of semen, when both these items are present in perfection. On the other hand, there are many women who suffer all sorts of ills, when these normally beneficial factors are misused or wrongly applied. The results that follow all depend upon the way the act is done, and its products utilized.
So, after the act of coition is over, let the woman slip a "bandage" into place as soon as possible, and go to sleep. ”

“ From the time of puberty up to the time of marriage the growing woman is under the influence of the now awakened sexual impulse, which experiences ever-renewed stimulation. A sedentary mode of life, unsuitable nutriment, and the early enjoyment of alcoholic beverages, exhibit their inevitable result in the frequency with which, in this epoch of the sexual life, chlorotic blood-changes, neurasthenic conditions, and diverse symptoms of irritation of the genital organs, make their appearance. ”

“ Kubary states that in Ponape (Western Carolines) the men are accustomed to titillate the vulva of their women with the tongue until the excitement is so intense that involuntary emission of urine takes place; this is regarded as the proper moment for intercourse.↑ Thus Pitres and Regis (Transactions of the International Medical Congress, Moscow, vol. iv, p. 19) record the case of a young girl whose life was for some years tormented by a groundless fear of experiencing an irresistible desire to urinate. ”

“ The fact that many apparently strong and healthy, as well as weak and nerveless, men who find their sexual powers gradually or suddenly failing them, can, in nine cases out of ten, trace it directly to losses of vital fluid in the urine or otherwise, that have been going on—perhaps wholly unknown to them—for months or years past. ”

“ A Diuretic effect is very frequently occasioned by substances which act on the stomach and primæ viæ, producing a peculiar state of these organs, which sympathetically affects the whole body, and more particularly the absorbent system, and the vessels concerned in the secretion of urine from the blood. As this primary influence upon the stomach, and the effects to which it gives rise in remote parts, are very different in their character, according to the nature of the remedy employed, and the state of the system at the time of its administration ”

“ The simulation of this affection may be detected by giving the patient a full dose of opium at night, without his knowledge, and introducing the catheter during sleep, or, by taking him by surprise during the day, and introducing the same instrument; when, if he be an impostor, it will be found that the urine has not drained off, guttatim, as it was secreted, but that the bladder possesses the power of retention. ”

“ An analogous relief from the nervous tension is effected during the orgastic crisis, and the cause of the libido in men and in women is this discharge of nervous energy. The ejaculation of the few drops of semen or of Kristeller’s plug is only an accidental incident, which may contribute to the well-being of the individual, just as the discharge from bladder and rectum, but which is not the cause of orgastic libido. ”

“ The affection is much less frequent in the female than the male.
ETIOLOGY.—There are two varieties of this affection—one, concentric hypertrophy, in which the bladder is contracted as well as having its walls thickened; the other eccentric, in which there is dilatation. Its principal causes are—obstruction to the outflow of urine from stricture of the urethra, tumors, or foreign bodies; cystocele, preventing complete evacuation; cystitis, causing too frequent or too forcible contraction; and irritable bladder in certain of the neuroses. ”

“ But when, in a woman who is sexually irritable in an excessive degree, the peripheral stimulation occurring in the act of sexual intercourse is unusually powerful, there may result a notable increase or modification of the reflex manifestations which normally occur during sexual intercourse in the province of cardiac activity; similar results ensue when there is a summation of stimuli owing to excessive sexual intercourse, or contrariwise when the act of intercourse is broken off just before its physiological climax and the natural termination of the orgasm fails to occur. ”

“ Education and mode of life have a marked influence on the intensity of the vita sexualis. Strenuous mental activity, earnest study, severe physical exertion, mental depression, and sexual continence, notably diminish the excitability of the sexual impulse. At first, indeed, abstinence leads to an increase in the intensity of the impulse, but sooner or later the functional activity of the organs of generation declines, and therewith also the intensity of the sexual impulse. ”

“ Sexual abstinence, recommended so warmly by the physicians of to-day, has the same significance in the development of conditions of anxiety only when the libido, to which satisfactory relief is denied, is sufficiently strong and not for the most part accounted for by sublimation. The decision whether illness is to result always depends upon the quantitative factors. ”

“ The number of women afflicted with the anomaly of impotence of libido is considerable. It is claimed by many authorities that ten to twenty per cent. of all women are afflicted with this anomaly.214 The symptoms of total anaesthesia are subjective and objective. There is first the statement of the husband about his wife’s indifference and coldness during the conjugal embrace. The woman complains of lack of orgasm and ejaculation and of the immediate flowing off of the sperma after coition. ”

“ 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 the62 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 ”

“ This patient was a devout, refined, and, in regard to other matters, a trustworthy person.
The functions of the reproductive organs both in the male and in the female are seriously deranged. In the male sex enfeeblement of the sexual function is manifested in all degrees, even to complete loss of sexual desire and sexual power. In certain individuals opium and morphine in moderate doses produce some increase of sexual desire and power, which is, however, speedily lost on the continuance of the habit. ”

“ The sexual act is accompanied by a pleasurable feeling, which, in the male, is conditioned by the passage of semen through the ductus ejaculatorii to the urethra, caused by sensory stimulation of the genitals. The pleasurable sensation occurs earlier in the male than in the female, grows rapidly in intensity until the moment of commencement of ejaculation, reaching its height in the instant of free emission, and disappears quickly post ejaculationem. ”

“ Only a small proportion of girls and women are entirely free, at the time of menstruation, from all change both in their bodily and in their mental state. A very great majority complain of feeling more or less unwell, of sensations of weight and pressure in the hypogastric region, of a general feeling of languor, loss of appetite, headache, irritability, sometimes of an inclination to weep; in women, a change in the intensity of the sexual impulse manifests itself, an increase in some, a decrease in others. ”

“ Whether in quite healthy women with normal sexual impulse, complete abstinence from sexual intercourse, too often compulsory but sometimes voluntarily undertaken, is harmful in its consequences—this, says Erb, is a question very difficult to answer. Many such unfortunate women have assured him that they suffered severely in consequence of their enforced continence ”

“ The old notions, however, as to the sexual licentiousness of peoples living in natural conditions have scarcely yet disappeared. See Appendix A; "The Sexual Instinct in Savages."↑ In men a certain degree of tumescence is essential before coitus can be effected at all; in women, though tumescence is not essential to coitus, it is essential to orgasm and the accompanying physical and psychic relief. The preference which women often experience for prolonged coitus is not, as might possibly be imagined, due to sensuality, but has a profound physiological basis.↑ Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. ”

“ When, as is most commonly the case, it is the process of urination and not the urine itself which is attractive, we are clearly concerned with a symbolism of act and not with the fetichistic attraction of an excretion. When the excretion, apart from the act, provides the attraction, we seem usually to be in the presence of an olfactory fetichism. ”

“ That total sexual abstinence may have very injurious effects on the nervous system, as mentioned in Chapter IV, and assist in the development of hysteria and neurasthenia, is shown by the fact that when there is an accumulation of semen in the male, or a swelling of the Graafian follicles in the female, then an excitation of the nervous system follows, with sexual desire. ”

“ In women these relationships are most easily observed, partly because in them the explosive centers are more easily discharged, and partly, it is probable, so far as the bladder is concerned, because, although after death the resistance to the emission of urine is notably less in women, during life about the same amount of force is necessary in both sexes ”

“ That under conditions of sexual abstinence in healthy individuals there must inevitably be some auto-erotic manifestations during waking life, a careful study of the facts compels us to believe. There can be no doubt, also, that, under the same conditions, the occurrence of the complete orgasm during sleep with, in men, seminal emissions, is altogether normal. ”

“ In women who had practised coitus reservatus for a prolonged period, in fact for several years, in such a manner that, notwithstanding the occurrence of intense voluptuous excitement, complete sexual gratification rarely, if ever, occurred—in such women, in whom these marital malpractices seemed to have profoundly influenced 346their psychical life, I have frequently witnessed a form of reflex cardiac disorder which I must regard as a variety of the multiform neurasthenia cordis vasomotoria. ”

“ The touchstone of marital hygiene is this, that on the day following intercourse both husband and wife should feel perfectly fresh, vigorous, and lively, alike in body and mind—even more so, perhaps, than on other days. In the absence of such feelings, we may feel assured of the occurrence of sexual excesses.” The same author quotes a saying of Pomeroy’s: “We may quaff the nectar as freely as we will—nature herself mixes the draught and holds the goblet to our lips; if, however, we drink too much, she first dilutes the draught with water, later adds gall, and ultimately perhaps deadly poison.” ”