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 Cabanis[162] "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 us[166] 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.