of the fecundating fluid and even of the erection, both of which are
regular. In such case it is caused either by the gland not being
properly perforated, or by a contraction of the urethral canal, which
contraction arrests the seminal fluid at the moment of expulsion,
causing it to flow back towards the bladder, or else intercepting the
continuous stream and allowing it to run by dribblets only. The former
of these imperfections technically called _Hypospsdiæos_ is a vice of
conformation in which the penis, instead of being perforated at the
summit of the gland, presents its opening at a greater or less distance
from the gland, at the lower part of the urethra or at the _perinæum_.
As might be expected, impotency when precocious, influences, in no small
degree, the moral character. Cabanis knew three men who, in the vigour
of age, had suddenly became impotent, although in other respects they
were in good health, much engaged in business, and had but little reason
to be affected by the loss of pleasures in which they indulged but very
rarely and with great moderation, yet their character became gloomy and
irascible, and their mental powers appeared to diminish daily.[45] The
celebrated Ribeiro Sanchez, a pupil of Boerhaave, observes in his
"_Traité des maladies Vénériennes chroniques_," that these diseases
particularly dispose those subject to them to superstitious terrors.
Impotency may, however, equally proceed from moral as from physical
causes. In this case it consists in the total privation of the
sensibility peculiar to the reproductive organs. This insensibility is
by no means infrequent in persons whose mental powers are continually in
action, as the following case will shew:--
A celebrated mathematician of a very robust constitution, having married
a young and pretty woman, lived several years with her, but had not the
happiness of becoming a father. Far from being insensible to the charms
of his fair wife, he, on the contrary, felt frequently impelled to
gratifying his passion, but the conjugal act, complete in every other
respect, was never crowned by the emission of the seminal fluid. The
interval of time which occurred between the commencement of his labour
of love and the end was always sufficiently long to allow his mind,
which had been for a moment abstracted by his pleasure, to be brought
back to the constant objects of his meditation--that is, to geometrical
problems or algebraical formula. At the very moment even of the orgasm,
the intellectual powers resumed their empire and all genital sensation
vanished. Peirible, his medical adviser, recommended Madame ---- never to
suffer the attentions of her husband until he was _half-seas-over_, this
appearing to him the only practicable means of withdrawing her learned
spouse from influence of the divine Urania and subjecting him more
immediately to that of the seductive goddess of Paphos. The advice
proved judicious. Monsieur ---- became the father of several fine and
healthy boys and girls, thus furnishing another proof of the truth of
the maxim, "_Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus_."
But the impotency arising from the predominance of the intellect is the
least formidable of all. The one most to be dreaded is that which
results from the excessive and premature exercise of the reproductive
functions, for, as has been well observed, "the too frequent indulgence
of a natural propensity at first increases the concomitant desire and
makes its gratification a part of the periodical circle of action; but
by degrees the over excitement of the organs, abating their tone and
vitality, unfits them for the discharge of their office, the
accompanying pleasures are blunted, and give place to satiety and
disgust."[46]
Such unfortunate persons as are the victims of this kind of anaphrodisia
become old long before their natural time, and have all their generative
apparatus blasted with impotency. 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.
An instance of this kind occurred in the case of a young man, the son of
an opulent family. He had arrived at puberty, but from the early age of
ten had been accustomed to indulge in indecent familiarities with young
girls, who had gratified him by lascivious manipulations; the
consequence was an entire loss of the erectile power. Travelling being
recommended, he proceeded to France, where he consulted, but without
avail, several celebrated physicians. He then went to the waters of Spa,
and there his case was attentively and anxiously considered by Van-Hers.
The sensibility and weakness of the genital member were so great that
on the slightest touch, and without any sensation or desire to sexual
intercourse the young man emitted a fluid similar to whey. This
secretion continued night and day, every time that he made water, or
upon the slightest friction of his linen. After various remedies being
proposed, without any beneficial results, Van-Hers considered the
disease as incurable; but, as the patient would not coincide in his
opinion and was very rich, he continued his travels in Italy, France,
and Germany, in the hope of recovering his powers of virility. He failed
not, as usual, to meet with physicians who, from mercenary motives, held
out to him the most illusory prospects of a perfect cure. At length,
after six years passed in travelling and in vain attempts to regain the
generative faculty, he returned to the candid and able physician from
whom he had the truth, and whose opinion he was now convinced was but
too well founded. As may be supposed, Van-Hers perceived no new
circumstance to justify an alteration in his view of the case, and the
unfortunate young man returned home, deeply deploring the advantages of
a fortune which had made him the victim of the precocious abuse of
pleasures to which he must now bid adieu for ever.[47] Too great warmth
of passion may not only defeat its own object, but also produce a
temporary impotency. A lover, after having, with all the ardour of
affections, longed for the enjoyment of his mistress, finds himself at
the moment of fruition incapable of consummating his happiness. The only
remedy for this misfortune is to allay the over-excitement and to
restrain the exuberance of the imagination. It would be madness to
persist in endeavouring to obtain a victory which must be certain, as
soon as the heat of the animal spirits being abated, a portion of them
proceeds to animate the agents of voluptuous passion. The following are
cases of this description.
"A young man whose wife's relations had promised him a
considerable estate as soon as she proved to be pregnant,
fatigued himself to no purpose by continued devotions at the
shrine of love; his over anxiety defeating the very object
he so ardently desired to accomplish. In despair at the
failure of his repeated efforts, he was, at length, on the
point of believing his wife barren, when, following the
advice of a judicious physician, he absented himself from
home for a fortnight, and upon his return proved by the
success which attended his amorous labours, that absence is
sometimes the best doctor."
"A noble Venetian, aged twenty years, was married to a very
handsome lady, with whom he cohabited with a good deal of
vigour, but never could emit semen in the coition, whereas
in his dreams he could discharge very freely. This
misfortune very much afflicted him and his family; and as no
remedy could be found at home, the Venetian ambassadors
residing at the different courts of Europe were desired to
consult some of the most eminent physicians in the cities
where they resided, to account for the causes, and to find a
cure for this extraordinary complaint of the difference of
the states when in sleep and when actually in coition.
"I was of opinion that it consisted altogether in the
urethra being closely shut by the vigour of the erection in
coition which found so great a resistance that the powers
that throw the seed out of the _vesiculæ seminals_ could not
overcome it; whereas, in dreams, the pressure on the urethra
being much less, an evacuation was affected."
The method of cure was not less successful than obvious from the
foregoing account: for gentle evacuations and a slender diet brought
about and fully completed their desires.[48]
Cabanis is of opinion that debility of the stomach almost always
produces a similar state in the organs of generation. "L'énergie ou la
débilité de l'éstomac produit, presque toujours, un état analogue dans
ceux de la génération. J'ai soigné un jeune homme chez qui la paralysie
accidentelle de ces derniers avait été produit par certains vices de la
digestion stomachique; et qui reprit la vigueur de son âge, aussitôt
qu'il eût récouvré la puissance de digérer."[49]
Old Montaigne's advice in cases similar to those above cited is worthy
of notice. "As to what concerns married people," says he, "having the
year before them, they ought never to compel, or so much as offer at the
feat, if they do not find themselves very ready. And it is better
indecently to fail of handling the nuptial sheets, and of paying the
ceremony due to the wedding night, when man perceives himself full of
agitation and trembling, expecting another opportunity at a better and
more private leisure, when his fancy shall be better composed, than to
make himself perpetually miserable for having misbehaved himself, and
being baffled at the first result. Till possession be taken, a man that
knows himself subject to this infirmity, should leisurely and by degrees
make certain little trials and light offers, without attempting at once
to force an absolute conquest over his own mutinous and indisposed
faculties; such as know their members to be naturally obedient to their
desires, need to take no other care but only to counterplot their fancy.
The indocile and rude liberty of this scurvy member, is sufficiently
remarkable by its importunate, unruly, and unseasonable tumidity and
impatience at such times as we have nothing for it to do, and by its
most unseasonable stupidity and disobedience when we stand most in need
of its vigour, so imperiously contesting the authority of the will, and
with so much obstinacy denying all solicitations of hand and fancy. And
yet, though his rebellion is so universally complained of, and that
proofs are not wanting to condemn him, if he had, nevertheless, feed me
to plead his cause, I should, peradventure, bring the rest of his
fellow-members into suspicion of complotting the mischief against him,
out of pure envy of the importance and ravishing pleasure peculiar to
his employment, so as to have, by confederacy, armed the whole world
against him, by malevolently charging him alone with their common
offence."[50]
Too great warmth of clothing round the parts of generation, or too great
pressure upon them, may be reckoned as causes of impotency. The custom
of wearing breeches was considered by Hippocrates[51] as a predisposing
cause of the impotency so common among the ancient Scythians. Mr. Hunter
was also of opinion that this article of dress by keeping the parts too
warm, affording them a constant support, and allowing the muscles but
little freedom of motion, may, at least, relax and cause them to become
flaccid, if it do not totally incapacitate them for the due performance
of their functions.
Equally disadvantageous, in this respect, is the practice of riding upon
horseback, as the organs of generation are, of necessity, frequently
compressed either against the saddle or the horse's back. Lalemant, in
his Commentaries upon Hippocrates, adduces the case of bakers, upon
whom, by their not wearing breeches, the contrary effect is produced.
"We have often heard," says he, "that bakers and others whose parts of
generation are not covered by clothing, but hang freely, have large,
well-grown testicles."[52]
Another cause of impotency is the allowing the parts of generation to
remain too long in a state of inaction. Those parts of the body which
are most exercised are always found to be better grown, stronger, and
more fitted for the discharge of their natural functions provided the
exercise be neither too violent nor too frequent. The parts, on the
contrary, which are condemned to rest and inactivity wither and
gradually lose their tone, as well as the power of effecting the
movements natural to them. Galen observes that the genital organs of the
athletæ, as well as those of all such whose profession or calling
compelled them to remain chaste, were generally shrunken and wrinkled
like those of old men, and that the contrary is the case with those who
use them to an excess. "All the athletæ," says he, "as well as those who
for the sake of preserving or improving the voice, are, from their
youth, debarred the pleasures of love, have their natural parts shrunken
and wrinkled like those of old men, while, in such as have from an early
age indulged in those delights to an excess, the vessel of those parts,
by the habit of being dilated, cause the blood to flow there in great
abundance, and the desire of coition to be proportionately increased,
all which is a natural consequence of those general laws which all our
faculties obey. Thus it is that the breasts of women who have never had
children remain always small, while those of females who have been
mothers, and who suckle their children, acquire a considerable volume,
that they continue to give milk as long as they suckle their infants,
and that their milk does not fail until they cease to nourish them."[53]
So well, indeed, was this fact known to the ancients, that Aristophanes
uses the expression, [Greek: _pôosthên mikran_], _penem exiguum_, as an
attribute of a youth who has preserved his innocence and [Greek: _kôlên
megalên_], _penem magnum_, as the sign of a dissolute one.
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.
D'un pauvre amant, le feu se tourne en glance;
Vif et perclus, sans rien faire, il se lasse;
Dans ses efforts étonné de languir,
Et consume sur le bord du plaisir.
Telle une fleur des fear du jour séchée,
La tête basse, et la tige penchée,
Demande en vain les humides vapeurs
Qui lui rendaient la vie et les couleurs.[54]
In olden times, prior to the invention of buttons, the femoral
habiliments of men, or hose, as they were called, were fastened up by
means of tags or points (Gallice) _aiguillettes_. Thus, Falstaff says,
"Their points being cut, down fell their hose." From this French word
_aiguillette_ was derived the term _nouer aiguillette_ (to tie up the
points), equivalent to--button up the flap, to express the rendering, by
enchantment, a husband incapable of performing the conjugal rite. The
whole secret of this charm consisted in the impostor choosing for his
victim an individual whose youth, inexperience, or superstition
presented him with a fit subject to work upon. The imagination of the
party being already predisposed for the trick, a look, a sign, a menace,
either of the voice or of the hand, accompanied by some extraordinary
gesture, was sufficient to produce the effect, and, as the mere
apprehension of an evil frequently occasions its occurrence, it followed
that, superstition having prepared the event, the latter, in his turn,
fortified the superstition, a vicious circle which may justly be
considered an opprobrium to a man's intelligence.
That such was the opinion entertained of it by sensible men when it was
in vogue, will be seen by the following curious passage from an old and
quaint French writer:
"Quelques uns tiennent cela pour superstition, qui quand on
dit la Messe des espousées, lorsque l'on prononce ce mot
_Sara_, à la bénédiction nuptiale, si vous estrerignez une
esguillette, que le marié ne pourra rien faire á son
espousée la nuict suyuante, tant que la dite esguillette
demeurera noüée. Ce que j'ay veu expérimenter faux infinies
fois: car pourveuque l'esguillette du compagnon soit
destachée, et qu'il siot bien roide et bien au point il ne
faut point douter qu'il n'accoustre bien la besongne, comme
il appartient. Aussi donne l'on vn folastre amulette et
digne du subject: c'est à sçavoir que pour oster le sort, it
faut pisser au travers d'une bague de laquelle on a esté
espousé. Véritablement ie le croy: car c'est à dire, en bon
Français que si on degoutte dans cet anneau de Hans Carvel,
il n'y a charme qui puisse nuire. Aussi nouer l'esguillette
ne signifie autre chose qu'vn coüard amant qui aura le
mēbre aussi peu disposé, que si l'esguillette ne sa brayette
estoit nouée."[55]
As to the mode itself of conjuration, Bodin, a writer upon these
subjects, asserts that there are not less than fifty different ways of
performing it: of all which the most efficacious one is to take a small
strip or thong of leather, or silken or worsted thread, or cotton cord,
and to make on it three knots successively, each knot, when made, being
accompanied by the sign of the cross, the word _Ribald_ being pronounced
upon making the first knot, _Nabal_ upon making the second one, and
_Vanarbi_ upon making the third and last one; all which must be done
during the celebration of the marriage ceremony. For the sake of change,
one of the verses of the _Miserere mei, Deus!_ may be repeated
backwards, the names of the bride and bridegroom being thrice
pronounced. The first time, the knot must be drawn rather tight; the
second time still more so, and the third time quite close. Vulgar
operators content themselves with pronouncing some cabalistic words
during the marriage rite, tracing, at the same time, some mysterious
figures or diagrams on the earth with the left foot, and affixing to the
dress of the bride or bridegroom small slips of paper having magical
characters inscribed upon them. Further details may be found in the
works of Sprenger, an inquisitor, Crespet of Sans, Debris, a Jesuit,
Bodin, Wier, De Lancre, and other learned demonologists.
This species of enchantment was not unknown to the ancients. Accordingly
to Herodotus[56] Amasis was prevented enjoying his wife Ladice by a
sorcery of this description, nor was it till after the Queen had vowed a
statue to Venus, "_si secum coiret Amasis_," that the king's wishes and
her own were gratified.
Plato warns married persons against such sorceries.[57] Virgil speaks
also of impotency effected by ligature.
Terna tibi hæc primum, duplici diversa colore
Licia circumdo.[58]
Ovid admits the power of such charms in the following lines:
Carmine læsa, Ceres sterilem vanescit in herbam
Deficiunt læsi carmine fontis aquæ:
Ilicibus glandes, cantataque vitibus uva
Decedit, et nulla forma movente, flexunt.
Quid vetat et nervos
Et juveni et Cupido, carmine abesse viro.[59]
Of that most detestable of all tyrants, Nero, it is said that, finding
he could not enjoy a female whom he passionately desired, he complained
of having been bewitched.
The fables of Apuleius are full of the enchantments of Pamphilus.[60]
Numantina, the first wife of Plautius Sylvanus, was accused of having
rendered her husband impotent by means of sorcery "injecisse carminibus
et veneficiis vecordium marito."[61]
Paulus (Julius) of Tyr states that the law of the Twelve Tables
contained an express prohibition against the employment of ligatures;
"qui, sacra, impia nocturnave fecerint, ut quem incantarent,
obligarent," &c.[62]
Gregory of Tours relates[63] that Eulatius having taken a young woman
from a monastery and married her, his concubines, actuated by jealousy,
put such a spell upon him, that he could by no means consummate his
nuptials. Paulus Æmilius, in his life of King Clovis says that Theodoric
sent back his wife Herméberge to her father, the King of Spain, as he
had received her, a pure virgin, the force of witchcraft having
incapacitated him from taking her maidenhead; which sorcery Aimoinus
Monachaus[64] asserts to have been effected by Queen Brunchante.
The practise of point tying was formerly so general that princes and
princess made it one of their most amusing pastimes. Louis Sforza having
seen the young Princess Isabella, daughter of Alphonso King of Arragon,
and who was betrothed to Geleas, duke of Milan, was so enamoured of her
beauty that he point-tyed Geleas for several months. Marie de Padille,
concubine of Don Pedro King of Castille and Leon, point-tied him so
effectually that he could not give the least marks of his fondness to
his consort Queen Blanche.
That the church acknowledged the power of these point-tiers is proved by
the fact of their having been publicly anathematized by the provincial
Councils of Milan and Tours, the Synods of Mont-Cassin and Ferriare, and
by the clergy of France assembled at Mélun in 1579. A great number of
rituals specify the means to be employed as counter-charms to the
sorceries of the point-tiers; and the Cardinal Cu Perron,[65] a very
able and experienced prelate, has inserted in the ritual of Evreux very
sage directions for this purpose. Similar precautions may be found in
the synodal statues of Lyons, Tours, Sens, Narbonne, Bourges, Troyes,
Orléans, and many other celebrated churches. St. Augustine, St. Thomas
and Peter Lombard positively recognise the power of point-tying and of
disturbing, in this manner, married persons in the enjoyment of their
dearest privilege. "_Certum est_," says St. Augustine, "_corporis vires
incantationibus vinciri_."
Our James I., who prided himself so much upon his skill in demonology,
declares positively that sorcerers and witches possess the power of
point-tying, "Or else by staying married folkes, to have naturally adoe
with other, _by knitting knottes upon a point at the time of their
marriage_."[66]
The old parliament of France have generally admitted the power of these
sorcerers. In 1582 the Parliament of Paris condemned one Abel de la Rue
to be hung and afterwards burnt for having wickedly and wilfully
point-tied Jean Moreau de Contommiers. A singular sentence was
pronounced in 1597 against M. Chamouillard for having so bewitched a
young lady about to be married that her husband could not consummate the
marriage. But the most singular instance of the kind upon record is that
of R. F. Vidal de la Porte, who was condemned by the judges of Riom to
make the _amende honorable_, and afterwards to be hung, and his lady to
be burnt until reduced to ashes for having by sorceries and wicked and
sacrilegious words point-tied, not only the young men of his town, but
also all the dogs, cats and other domestic animals, so that the
propagation of these species so useful to man was upon the point of
being stopped. In 1718 the Parliament of Bordeaux ordered a famous
point-tier to be burnt. This pretended sorcerer had been accused and
convicted of having point-tied a nobleman of high family, his wife, and
all the men and women servants in his establishment.
It must not be supposed that no counter-charms or amulets existed. The
Curate Thiers, who has written at large upon this subject, enumerates
twenty-two different ones, the most potent of which were the following:
1. To put salt in the pocket before proceeding to church; pennies marked
with the cross and put into the shoes of the bride and bridegroom were
equally efficacious.
2. To pass three times under the crucifix without bowing to it.