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.