Scott's encyclopaedia of sex : a practical encyclopaedia arranged in alphabetical order, explanatory of everything pertaining to sexual physiology, psychology and pathology.

  • Scott, George Ryley, 1886-
Date:
[1939]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Scott's encyclopaedia of sex : a practical encyclopaedia arranged in alphabetical order, explanatory of everything pertaining to sexual physiology, psychology and pathology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tions through its irritant effect upon the bladder and urethra, and is sure to have injurious effects. It may even cause death. It was to cantharides poisoning that was attributed the fatal illness of Ferdinand of Castile; it was the same poison, administered in chocolates, which caused a number of prostitutes in a Marseilles brothel to be seriously ill and led to the arrest of the Marquis de Sade. Arsenic is another particularly dangerous aphrodisiac. Preparations of this poison- ous drug have a considerable sale under euphemized names, being used by women because of the reputed beneficial effects of arsenic upon the complexion in ad- dition to its sexual stimulatory powers. Cannabis indica, or Indian hemp, which forms the basis of any aphrodisiacal property possessed by the notorious Marihuana cigarette, is one of the most popular and widely used sexual stimu- lants to-day. There are indications that the drug acts as a temporary stimulant, but its cumulative effect is to cause im- potence in the male. Morphine and cocaine have similar temporary effects which, after regular use for some time, give place to lack of all sexual appetite and capacity. Many of these so-called aphrodisiacs have no sexual stimulatory powers at all; e.g. musk, garlic, ginger, nutmeg, and others. Damiana, for generations, has enjoyed a great reputation as an aphrodisiac and has been and is still used extensively by live-stock breeders for this purpose. It is, however, as I have proved by extensive experiments, quite useless. Summing up the position as regards drugs and medicinal preparations, we may safely say they are either ineffective or, if effective, injurious and dangerous. It is therefore most inadvisable for any- one to have recourse to stimulants of this nature unless they are prescribed by a competent medical man. In considering the question of food and its effects upon the sexual organs, while much of the reputed influence ex- erted by specific foodstuffs is either greatly exaggerated or wholly apocry- phal, it is nevertheless a fact that sexual virility is largely governed by physical fitness and health. For this reason the effects of food upon sexual power are not to be overlooked, insomuch that the only way in which a man or a woman can expect to be sexually potent and fertile is by keeping in good health. With food as with drugs, it is a note- worthy fact that those specific prepara- tions which have achieved fame as aphrodisiacs, in all cases where sym- pathetic magic does not enter into the matter, owe their reputed virtues to their irritating or mental stimulating powers. Thus any effects which a diet composed largely of eggs, fish, meat, oysters, caviare, onions, et al., has upon the sexual powers is due to its body- building and strength-sustaining proper- ties, and not to any magical qualities with which any one of or all the compon- ent parts of such a diet is endowed. With liquid stimulants the position is somewhat different. Much depends upon the reaction of the individual to the particular stimulant consumed; much, too, depends upon the circumstances in which the drink is partaken. It may be safely assumed that, in most cases where a moderate amount of liquid stimulant, and especially of spirits, is consumed in dance-halls, night-clubs and other places where the sexes commingle under con- ditions favourable to erotic excitation, the effect will be distinctly aphrodisiacal. If, however, the consumption of alcohol, in whatever form it may take, is im- moderate so far as the individual is con- cerned, the effect will be precisely the opposite. Instead of acting as a sexual stimulant, the alcohol will either eradi- cate all erotic desire or render the sex act, so far as the male is concerned, physically impossible. Thus Sturgis affirms that a chronic alcoholic is eight times out of ten, sexually speaking, a eunuch; 1 while Vecki says that the intemperate consumption of beer or whisky hinders erection.2 In recent years, in common with the tendency of the times, the interest of man in aphrodisiacs, while it has in no way lessened, has turned from the more homely drugs and mendicaments of old. 1 F. R. Sturgis, Sexual Debility in Man, p. 307. Rebman, 1901. 2 Victor G. Vecki, Sexual Impotence. Saunders, Philadelphia, 1915.