From sexual enjoyments, the following advantages may be derived: they
relieve plethora, render the body lighter, promote its growth, and make
it more masculine; they free the mind from the cares which beset it,
and relieve it from ungovernable anger. Wherefore, the best possible
remedy for melancholy is coition. Those also who are otherwise affected
with mania it will restore to reason. It is also a powerful remedy for
phlegmatic disorders, will restore the appetite to those who have lost
it, and dispel continued libidinous dreams. The temperaments which are
most adapted for venery are the hot and humid, and these bear it best.
A dry and cooling diet, old age, and the season of autumn unfit for it.
The diet, therefore, ought to be moistening and heating; and moderation
as to labour and food ought to be observed. And as other kinds of labour
are useful so also are the venereal, when taken in moderation; for they
incite to the act, and, by the habit, procure some alleviation. But
nothing is so much required as abundance of food, which also ought to
be of a nutritious nature. Of fishes, the best are polypi, (which are
otherwise supposed to incite,) and all the class called mollusca; of
pot-herbs, the all-good (horminum), hedge-mustard (erysimum), rocket
(irio), and turnip. And the following are as medicines: of pulse, beans,
chick-peas, Sicilian peas, kidney-beans and peas, which fill the body
with vapours and abundance of food. Rue, as it concocts and dispels
flatulence, blunts the venereal appetite. But I greatly approve of
grapes, which supply the body with moisture, and fill the blood with
flatus, which rouses to venery. He who is about to proceed to the act
ought to guard against repletion, indigestion, lassitude, precursory
vomits and purges, and, in like manner, an acute diarrhœa; for a chronic
one is dried up by venery. And strong desires I do not approve of, but
think that they ought to be contended against, especially by those
who have any distemper. The most proper season for enjoyment is after
gymnastic exercises, baths, and a moderate repast; for food contributes
to the strength, and diminishes the chills which succeed it. The
proper time, as I said before, is after eating, and before sleep, for
the lassitude is relieved by sleep. This too is the fittest time for
procreation on many accounts, and because that the woman falling asleep
is the more likely to retain the semen.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. The contents of this Section are mostly taken from a fuller
account of this subject, given in an extract from the works of Ruffus,
preserved by Oribasius. (Med. Col. vi, 38.) See also Aëtius (iii, 18);
Galen (Ars Medica, de Sanit. tuend. iii, 11); Avicenna (Cant.); Averrhoes
(Comment. in Cantica, and Collig. vi, 7); Rhases (ad Mansor. iv, 17);
Haly Abbas (Pract. i, 10, 13); Alsaharavius (Theor. x.)
The conclusion at which Galen arrives with regard to venereal exercises
is that they have a tendency to render the body drier, colder, and
weaker, and that these bad effects are to be counteracted by things of a
bracing, heating, and strengthening nature.
Averrhoes says, venery, in a word, induces the following evils: dryness
of the body, effeminacy, imbecility, exhaustion, and at the same time
prostration; therefore, the friction which is had recourse to after it,
ought to remove the inconveniences occasioned by it. This should be much
and rough friction, and be performed with oil.
According to Avicenna, excessive indulgence breaks down the powers of
the constitution, and superinduces either a cold intemperament or hectic
fever. Abstinence, on the other hand, by those who had been in the habit
of indulgence, is said to bring on heaviness of the head and diseases of
the joints and testicles. In this case, he recommends rue, and various
other articles, which were supposed by the ancients to be possessed of
anti-aphrodisiacal properties. Cicuta, according to Pliny, produces this
effect.
Alsaharavius forbids coition when the body is either reduced by
abstinence or overloaded with too much food and drink. The proper season
for it, he says, is after sleep, when digestion is accomplished, and
towards morning. It is prejudicial, he says, in very hot seasons, and
to persons of a dry intemperament. Rhases, like our author, says that
moderate indulgence removes plethora, lightens the mind, and cures sorrow.
According to Haly Abbas, the most proper time for enjoyment is after
digestion, and when the food has descended into the stomach. If performed
before sleep, he says, there is most chance of impregnation. Abstinence,
when one had become habituated to the act, he says, weakens the natural
heat, hurts the breast, stomach, and liver, induces coldness of the body,
and renders it dry, sluggish, and enervated. Excess, on the other hand,
brings on premature old age and consumption.
It will be remarked that our author and Alsaharavius differ in opinion as
to the best season for partaking of the δωῤ ἐρατὰ χρυσῆς Αφροδίτῆς.
See a learned disquisition on this and other similar matters in the
‘Symposiacon’ of Plutarch. Pliny says of it “medetur et lumborum dolori,
oculorum hebetationi, mente captis, ac melancholicis.” (H. N. xxviii, 16.)