This is taken from a book called “What everyone knew about sex: Explained in the words of Orson Squire Fowler and Other Victorian Moralists” by William M. Dwyer. My mum gave it to me after I read it and laughed at it. I decided at Xmas that I was going to put chapters into here and I have finally got round to it.
Any future entries whereby the title starts “On ” are chapters taken from this book.
On Aphrodisiacs:
Are love potions effective?
I think the advice of Dr. George Napheys on this point is well worth your consideration: ‘There are those who would give a fictitious appearence of strenght to their animal powers, and seek by artificial irritants to restore to the nerves a sensitiveness which they no longer possess. This is a most dangerous and reprehensible habit. Yet even at this day, we see love powders and philtres advertised in the newspapers.’
What would you suggest?
According to Dr. Napheys, ‘A most excellent preparationis that known as racahout, a mixture of cacao and starch, flavoured with vanilla. Both the cacao and the vanilla have long enjoyed a reputation of fortifying the sexual system.’ But beware of philtres on the market. Many dealers dispense innocuous powders. One of them admitted selling two barrels of pulverised caraway seed under the name of love powder.
Is coffee, as some say, usefull in this regard?
Yes, but only in moderation. A case has been reported of a man of thirty who, in order to qualify for an appointment to a college facility, studied with great dilligence, supporting his interlectual powers on ten cups of coffee daily. After a few weeks he became sexually impotent. He later recovered after abstaining from coffee. From long experience Dr. Albert Muller lays down this rule: ‘Through moderate use of coffee, virility can be strenghend; through excessive use of it, virility may be diminished, and indeed wholly destroyed.’
Is it true that in parts of France the bread tends to act as a stimulant?
The French doctor Deslandes has reported that the rye bread eaten in the Gironde valley contains a fungus which acts as a strong stimulant and at the same time weakens the health. It is called ‘ergot’, French for ‘Cock’s spur,’ which the fungus resembles. According to Deslandes, The natives eat rye bread from which the fungus has not been separated. As a result their faces are disfigured, pinched and pale. ‘They present an appearance of complete physical degridation,’ Deslandes adds, ‘and yet their passions are prodigious and they yield to them with a real frenzy.’
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