UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
MEDICAL.LIBRARY.ARMED.FORCES.
FOUNDED 1836
WASHINGTON, D.C.
B19574









A 
TREATISE 
OF THE
USE of FLOGGING 
IN
VENEREAL AFFAIRS. 
ALSO OF THE 
OFFICE of the LOINS and REINS. 
WRITTEN TO THE FAMOUS 
CHRISTIANUS CASSIUS, Bishop of Lubeck, and
Privy-Councellor to the Duke of Holstein. 
By JOHN HENRY MEIBOMIUS, M. D. 
Made English from the Latin Original, 
By a PHYSICIAN. 
Delicias pariunt Veneri crudelia Flagra; 
Dum nocet, ilia juvat; dum juvat, ecce nocet. 
LONDON: Printed in the Year 1000, 700, 61,



THE 
Translator's Preface. 
BOOKS which treat upon subjects of this curious
nature, being as liable to the censure of the 
injudicious, as to the praise and admiration of the
truly knowing, it may not be amiss to premise same 
observations to the reader, in defence of this work. 
The author himself was a man of great reputation, 
an eminent physician, and an excellent philologer;
and had he foreseen any ill effect from a treatise of this
sort, he would have hardly risqued his same and prac- 
tice, by suffering it to he published. A bishop desired
him to write it, and took care to spread it into a 
many hands as printing could; and it was attended
A2 with

PREFACE
with the improvements of two eminent physicians in 
the last edition.* But it may be objected, that it 
was wrote in a language only familiar to the learned, 
so that it could do no harm in that tongue, as if learn- 
ing was a charm for human infirmities, and Latin and
Greek could conjure down the vices and passions of 
mankind. Alas! we find neither learning nor 
learned ornaments are proof against humanity, and 
there is no more sanctifying quality in a coat of one
colour than another. The Devil of the flesh works
in black as well as red. 
In fact it is true, the fault is not in the subject 
matter, but the inclination of the reader, that makes
these pieces offensive. He who will deter people from
vice, must make it odious by explaining its consequences, 
which is effectually done in tins treatise. The chastest 
ear in the world is not polluted by a relation of the 
prodigies in lewdness, nor ought any man he offended 
at a naturalist who searches into the causes of the dis- 
* Thomœ Bartholini, Jean. Henrici Meibomii, Patris, Henrici 
Meibomii,, Filii, De usu FLAGRORUN in Re Medica & 
Venerea, Lumborumque & Renum Officio. Francesurti, ex 
Bibliopolio Hasniensi Danielis Paulli, Bibl. Reg. 1570 
temper,

PREFACE
temper, and shews how they may proceed from the 
springs of nature herself, without having recourse to
fancy, fiction, and ridiculous diabolical enchantments. 
That the use of strokes and stripes have an effect up- 
on the languid organs after our author's manner of 
reasoning, is no wonder at all to the learned, tho' the
ignorant perhaps may be startled at the assertion, I crave
leave to fortify our author's observations by a very
common one, used among ourselves. It is the custom 
when a stallion will not readily cover a mare, to beat 
him with staffs upon the back, and so quicken the cir- 
culation of the blood, and stimulate the parts of ge- 
neration to a compliance with the purpose of nature. 
The effect is plain, and the argument will hold in 
proportion with the human species. 
I am here tempted to say something of a more dan- 
gerous and modern improvement on the art of lewdness, 
of which I know one or two remarkable histories, 
and perhaps when I have finished the physical reasons 
of its effects. the world may see them published. In 
the

PREFACE:
the mean time, the hanging-lechers are desired to ob-
serve, that their practice is no secret, and that it is 
known that some of them have lately had very 
narrow escapes in the experiment, and instead of con- 
tributing towards the propagation of their species,
have gone near to have destroyed it. A late unac- 
countable secret of murder tends very much this way, 
and some others. 
Quos Ego—sed motos præstat componere fluctus:  
London, 
May 5, 1718.
A LET-


A 
LETTER 
FROM 
THOMAS BARTHOLIN, 
On the Medicinal USE of 
RODS, 
TO 
HENRY MEIBOMIUS.
YOUR father John Henry Meibomius, de- 
serves to be reckoned among the principal orna- 
ments of the age; but you, who are the heir 
and successor of his virtues, take care to spread 
his fame, and increase his reputation, by pub- 
lishing his writings: he continually adorned the 
divine art he peculiarly prosessed, with a variety 
of learning; nor do you take less pains than 
your father, to obtain the name of a learned 
physician. The writings of your father already 
published


[2]
published upon the oath of Hippocrates, and
the life of Mecænas, prove how great a man he 
was. You give a promising earnest to posterity 
what a son you are, by publishing to the world 
your father's lucubrations now in your hands, 
and worthy the most curious eye, taking care to 
increase them with your own excellent additions. 
Among the vast compass of your father's learn- 
ing, and his more serious studies, he sometimes 
descended to things of less moment, and wrote 
at the instance of the great Christianus Cassius, 
(whose memory will be alway gtateful to me) a 
short dissertation collected from antiquity, of the 
medicinal use of flogging. This treatise, my 
bookseller, excited by the uncommonness of the 
subject, had a mind to reprint, and desired some 
additions to it from me; I referred him to you, 
the son of the author, Professor of Physic in the 
university of Juliers, and, by the example of 
your father, conversant in all kind of literature 
and antiquity, as being more nearly concerned 
in the reputation of your father's writings, and 
it not being to be expected, that a book which 
shines so much in the contents of its author, 
should receive the least ornamnet from my hand: 
but although you was not wanting to your father's 
fame in sending back the book, enlarged with 
many additions, together with an elegant epistle; 
yet Paullinus, my bookseller, with a view of 
making an honest gain, has entreated me to add 
some few observations, which he fancies I have 
always ready by me on all occasions; that I might 
not

[3]
not balk his hopes, nor fail in the duty I owe to 
the Meibomius’s and the Cassius’s, and to profit 
the public too. 
Communis ista pluribus causa est Deis.
That common care of ev’ry heav'nly power. 
I have, among my other studies, which my 
friends knows I am employed in, collected a few 
twigs to add to your bundle of rods, and dedicate 
them to yours and your father’s honour. Few 
before you have taken notice of the use of rods 
in physic; it is certain very few care for them, 
since gentle and easy methods please our patients 
best. and they are startled at severer medicines, 
tho' the condition of mortality is such, that even 
when we desire to use them most gently, we very 
often neither can nor dare. Hippocrates’s chains 
are now and then to be called in, and a severer 
discipline is to be used to obstinate distempers. 
Strokes and stripes of rods, most effectually 
cure those who dissemble diseases; it has often 
happened, that persons who have shamed an epi- 
lepsy, have grown well, and been cured before 
they have been sick, by this sharp and whole- 
some remedy. It has done good too as preventive 
physic, by hindering others from imposing dis- 
tempers upon the world. I have known lazy 
servants, who have dissembled some strange dis- 
temper, return to their business by this discip- 
B line.

[4]
line, We can the less doubt that strokes contri- 
bute to the cure of real bodily distempers, since 
they cure those of the soul. From hence it is, 
that you may see in Italy, in lent-time, the order 
of floggers, expiating the sins of their past lives, 
by swinging strokes and wounds upon their backs, 
like those in the rites of Cybele of old, who, 
as Claudian says (book I. in Entrop.) says. 
—pectusque illidera pinu 
Inguinis & reliquun Phrygiis abscindere Cultris.
To wound their breasts, their Phrygian knives 
display,
And cut the pounders and the nerve away. 
Such among the heathens were the Syrian slog- 
gers, who punished themselves for their crimes, 
or were hired by others to do it, by stoutly slog- 
ging with a knotted whip, as Apuleius discribes 
them in the VIIIth book of his Metamorphosis. 
Circe’s rod was of another kind, that transformed 
the human minds of Ulysses’s companions into 
beasts, particularly hogs, according to Homer 
in the Xth Odysse. But this is all magical stuff, 
yet the moral of it proves, that some return to 
their senses by blows, and others loose them. 
The metamorphosis is certain, but the form is 
different, tho’ neither the one nor the other can 
be done by enchantment. I myself have seen  
several corrected with rods by the priests at Pa- 
dua, who were thought to be possessed with an
evil


[5]
evil spirit; but who, as the physicians rightly 
observe from the similitude of their symptoms, 
had really epileptical fits, and to such persons 
slogging could do no harm, because it raised the
natural heat of their bodies. The man possessed
with the unclean Spirit in St. Mark, Chap. V. 
cut himself with stones; and St. Paul complains,
in the second epistle to the Corinthians, that he 
was buffetted with fists, or joints of the fingers, 
as Martinius in his etymologies explains the word, 
from Varinus, tho’ Hayman, Bishop of Halber- 
stad, thinks this buffetting should rather be ex- 
pounded by the fire of lust, kindled by the De- 
vil, than any pain in the head. That flogging 
was used in the cure ol distempers formerly, 
Meibomius proves by various ancient authorities, 
and that, when there was no room for more 
moderate remedies; for whipping with rods a- 
mong the Romans, was used for flagrant crimes, 
and as the proper punishment of slaves, where 
as only freemen, as an argument ot lighter pu- 
nishment, were corrected by blows of sticks, as 
Brissonius largely proves in his antiquaries the 
passage in Cœlius  Aurelianus, concerning the 
cure of madness, is a very elegant one, and is 
but slightly cited by your father, the great Mei- 
bomius, and therefore I shall dwell upon it a 
little longer, in order to make it a more effectual 
remedy, although Cœlius speaks it from the 
judgment of others, not his own, and particu-
larly of Titus, the scholar of Asclepiades, 
whose life we expect from that desirable work. 
The


[6]
The Lives of the Physicians, which you have 
promised us from your father’s papers. The 
words of Cœlius are these, “Others order them to 
be disciplined with rods, that their understanding 
being as it were quite banished, they may come 
again to their senses: whereas the whipping of 
swelled parts only makes them the rougher; and 
when their fit begins to cease, and they recover 
their senses, they are still vexed with the pain 
of whipping.” So it stands in Rouvillius’s edi- 
tion, which is that I make use of; but your fa- 
ther reads it, “To banish their madness, and 
make them recover.” Now Cœlius, who was a 
methodist in physic, laughs at that manner of 
cure, partly because the swelled parts would be 
made rougher by the strokes and stripes, and the 
pain remain even after the cure, and partly be- 
cause the cure does not respect the part affected; 
for he says, “If as reason requires assistance to be 
given to the parts affected, and those nearest to 
them, they will be obliged to strike the face and 
head.” But distempers of the head are more in- 
creased by blows, that part being hurt by the 
least external force: and yet this medicine of 
Titus, although somewhat harsh, has it use; for 
he is not afraid of raising the heat, because 
madness is without a fever or a small pulse, which 
distinguishes it from a frenzy. So it is the fear 
of pain, which keeps the patient within the 
bounds of reason. Thus I knew a very hon- 
est man, who was often mad, forced by the 
threatenings and blows of a stronger person, to 
lye

[7]
lye as quite as a lamb. But the method of the 
relaxed parts is different, which are raised by 
being struck with blows, and provoking the 
pain and heat; and yet the same Cœlius won’t 
allow Themison, that the parts affected in this 
case are to be struck with a ferula, because he 
thinks they may be cured better, and re-corpor- 
ated by bathing in salt water. But under the 
favour of this methodist, as salt water may be 
properly substituted instead of the ferula; so 
both kinds of remedies excite the sense by their 
acrimony, and re-corporation follows both; what- 
ever the ferula effects, the salt water does, which, 
as Diascorides says, is warm and acrid. And 
with Celsus all salt things are acrid: from whence 
Scribonius uses the plaister Marine for the renew- 
ing old and callous ulcers; for the relaxed parts 
are rather stupified than revived by gentle appli- 
cations. Strong frictions, strocks, and punc- 
tures are what must make them swell and rise a- 
gain; and yet there is moderation to be used in 
this point, as Galen prescribes, as striking the 
macerated parts with small ferulas, lightly tinc- 
tured, till they are raised by degrees. By this 
method, a dealer in slaves in a short time plump- 
ed the buttocks of boy, who was almost consum- 
ed with hunger, using daily, or at least every o- 
ther day, a moderate percussion of the parts. If 
Cœlius is terrified by the pain of rod, there are 
other remedies at hand in Ægæneta, Chap. XII. 
such as sheep-skin fresh drawn, and still worn ap- 
plied to the parts; besides others observed by 
Ætius,



[8]
Ætius, Galen, and Avicenna. Apulcius tells us,
that the effeminate Syrians armed themselves by 
a preservative against the pains of whipping; and 
Beroaldus guesses, that this preservative was 
holding their breath,* which he proves from 
Pliny to be the contrivance of an animal called 
Meles; these creatures using upon a fright to stretch 
and swell up their skin, and so remain insensible 
to the bites of dogs, and strokes of men. 
This cure by whipping, altho’ it may seem 
rough, yet ought not a physician to abstain from 
it, if it has a good effect. St. Austin, in his 
50th epistle, speaks elegantly to this purpose, 
“A physician is uneasy to a patient in a frenzy, 
and so is a father to an unruly son; the one by 
tying him down, and the other by whipping, but 
both by loving them; but if they should neg- 
lect them, and suffer them to perish, that false 
clemency is rather a cruelty.” Socrates in his 
Gorgias of Plato says. That a physician should 
not indulge his patient in their appetites, or use 
many and high meats.” For, as Tertullian a- 
gainst the Gnosticks, say, “That part of medi- 
cine, in which lancet, cauteries, burning, (and
we may add stripes) are concerned, is a kind of 
barbarity, and yet to be cut, burnt, extended, 
bitten, are not therefore evils, because they 
bring useful pains, nor are they to be forebore. 
* This is still practised in most schools.
because



[9]
because they make us uneasy, but because they 
necessarily make us uneasy, they are to be used.” 
The good effect excuse the horror of the applica- 
tion; for things are not to be esteemed good or 
evil by pain or pleasure, but by their usefulness 
and unusefulness. All things therefore ought to 
be borne with by the direction of a physician, 
according to that ancient form or sentence, Go 
Lictor, or slave, bind his hands, beat him, co- 
ver his head, and (all but the last) hang him up- 
on the tree. This is the reason that Martial, 
book II. ep. 17. among the instructions of the 
barbers, reckons whips. 
Tonstrix Suburrœ soucibus sedet primis, 
Cruenta pendent qua slagella tortorum. 
The suburb-barbers at the city’s end 
Where slogging whips, in bloody whips de-
pend. 
For their whips were roughened and hardened, 
by twisting the wool in strong knots, to increase 
the sense of pain, and leave marks under the 
skin. as if impressed by strings or bones of ani- 
mals, or as Apuleius expresses it, “Imprinted 
with the crooked hoofs of sheep: so that it is no 
wonder that Catullus in his XXVth epigram to 
Thallus, when he threatens the whip to his hands 
and sides, calls them burnt or branded. 
Ne Laneum latusculum, munusq, mollicellas 
Inusta turpiter tibi Flagella conscribillent. 
For



[10]
For fear the scribling whip should brand 
Your tender side, and lady-hand. 
But let antiquaries look at this point. The phy- 
sician is sometimes forced to as rough a remedy; 
for, as Seneca rightly observes, “The medicine 
then begins to have an effect on insensible bodies, 
when they are so handled as to feel pain. In a 
torpor, or numbness of the limbs, instead of net- 
tles, which as Columella says, are so astringent, if 
made use of, as to kill young geese. Our coun- 
try men here, pick the feathers off of the breasts 
of the African hens, and sting them with nettles 
to make them fit upon their eggs the more 
readily. When the swallow is obstructed by a 
bone, or something else sticking in the passage of 
the throat, we clap the patient lustily upon the 
back, with a design to force out that way the 
obstructing matter. If the bone of the lower 
jaw is either by immoderate laughter or yawning 
dislocated, it is reduced by a hearty slap on the 
face, which very often causes mirth in company. 
Among the Insubres, as I have proved in my 
Cento of Histories, the dead fœtus is extracted 
from the mother by compressing the belly strong- 
ly or striking it with wooding or steel balls. I 
have observed that boys, and men too, have 
been cured of pissing in bed by whipping. 
Your father has proved by many examples, 
how much flogging prevails in venereal affairs, 
which I have no occasion to repeat, or offend the 
ear



[11]
ears by a second reading, although I knew a per- 
son at Venice, who could not be sollicited to a 
love encounter, any way, but by the blows 
of his mistress's fist, as Cupid, formerly in Ana-
creon, forced people to follow him by striking 
them with a wand of Hyacinth. We may ob- 
serve, for the illustration of this argument, that 
not only men are excited to unlawful and unsea- 
sonable pleasures by flogging, but women too, 
are raised and inflamed by strokes to a more easy 
conception. This was known to the Roman ladies, 
who offered their hands to be whipped by the 
Luperci to promote conception. Juvenal speaks 
of this ceremony in his second satire. 
—steriles moriuntur, & illis
Turgida non prodest condità pyxide Lyde; 
Nec prodest agili palmas prœbere Luperco. 
Barren they dye, a lovely Lyde mocks 
Their hopes, tho' pictur'd teeming in the box. 
In vain, before the quick Lupercal band. 
They wish conception from the passive hand. 
Now there is an easy reason why the striking of 
the palm should forward fecundity in the Roman 
ladies, without having recourse to superstition, 
to be drawn from the circulation of the blood; 
for the blood growing warm in the hand from 
the strokes received, runs back to the heart; and 
from thence by the arteries to the womb, which 
being thus inflamed is excited to lust, and dis-
C posed

[12]
posed for conception. As to the ferula itself, 
which was made use of in the feast of the Luper- 
ci, Festus Pompeius describes it thus, The Ro-
mans called the Luperci Crepi, from the Crepi- 
tus, or noise, which they gave in the action of 
striking ; for it was their custom, at that feast, 
to run about naked, and strike all the women 
they met with a ferula; now this ferula was 
made, as Dempster conjectures, of a cover of 
skin or hide, and that either of a dog or goat, 
either to increase the found or the pain. Plu- 
tarch calls that kind of striking a purgation, and 
I remember I have read these verses in Ovid. 
Exeipe fœcundœ patientur verbera dextrœ, 
Jam Pater optati nomen habebit avi, 
Of the right-hand the fruitful lashes bear, 
And glad your house and father with an heir. 
Juvenal in the passage before recited, ridicules 
these strokes; and Prudentius, in his Roman 
martyr, fatyrizes it as a foolish custom. 
Quid illa turpis pompa? nempe ignobiles 
Vos effe monstrat, cum Luperci curritis, 
Quem servulorum non rear vilissimum? 
Nudus plateas, si per omnes cursitans 
Pulset Puellas verbere ictas ludicro.
What



[13]
What means that foolish pomp, that filthy show. 
When thro’ the streets the mad Luperci go? 
It shows you vile, and mean, as you behave. 
For who can think him other than a slave? 
Who dancing thro’ the town the dames provoke, 
To fancy’d pregnancy, by foolish strokes, 
We have shown how this custom might be war- 
ranted from a natural reason, tho’ the Luperci 
might have a trick at the bottom, who struck the
women with other kind of weapons than the Fe- 
rula, as Cardan imagines. Among some nations, 
such as the Persians and Russians, the married wo- 
men take it as a token of love from their hus- 
bands to be foundly beaten. Barclay says of the
Russian wives, That they estimate the kindness 
of their husbands from the strokes they give 
them; and are never more happy in their opi- 
nion, than when they have met with a man of a 
barbarous temper. Olearius, that great traveller, 
denies that he met any such thing; but Barclay, 
confirms it by a very singular instance, which I 
shall take the liberty of repeating: "A certain
vulgar fellow, and if his name is of any moment 
in such a trifle, he was called Jordanes, had tra- 
velled from Germany to Muscovy; there he set- 
tled, and liking the place, married a wife in the 
country; the woman he very much loved, and 
desiring by all means a mutual affection from her, 
observed her still melancholy, with down cast 
eyes, often sighing, and betraying other signs
of a discontented mind. But when her husband
C2 enquired.

[14]
enquired the cause of her affliction, affirming, 
that he was not wanting in any instance of love 
and respect. Yes, replies the woman, are not 
you a notable dissembler of love? D'ye think I 
don’t know how dispicable I am to you, and im- 
mediately fell into a fit of sighing and crying? 
The man quite astonished, began to embrace her, 
and presist in asking her if he had offended in any
thing; that perhaps he might, but would make her 
amends for the future? In answer to this, she 
said, Where are your blows and beatings, the 
proofs of your love? Sure it is, that in this coun- 
try they are the only instances of the care and 
affection of husbands. When Jordanes heard 
this, his amazement at firs hindered his laugh- 
ter, but soon after, when both were over, he 
thought it for his interest to use her as she had
prescribed, and not long after took an occasion 
to beat her; and she growing into good humour 
by the influence of the cudgel, from that time
first began to love and esteem her husband in 
earnest.” Petrus Petræus, in his chronicle of 
Muscovy, tells us the same story, with this ad- 
dition, that husbands usually provided whips, af- 
ter their wedding, for the same purpose, and 
reckon them among the houshold-goods of the 
family. Perhaps we may draw a reason from 
what has been said of this bitter sweet love, for 
these beatings are not used by way of correction
or amendment. For bad women (if there are 
any such) are neither to be restrained by threat- 
enings or passion, no, nor if they were to beat 
out 

[15]
out their teeth with a flint, as Simonides ex-
presses it, in his fragment preserved by Stobæsus; 
but a good husband is so far from tormenting the 
dear bosom of his wife with strokes, that he had 
rather do as the man in Seneca did, afflict him- 
self, and make his wife suffer by proxy. 
I have determined, as well as your father 
Meibomius has, that by flogging of the loins, 
and heating the reins, the matter of the seed 
is either quickened or increased, and how that 
should be performed by the circulation of the 
blood in the reins, I have long since shown in
my Anatomy Reformed, from Sennertus, Otha-
sius, and Wormius; all which, if it will not 
satisfy the learned, I have nothing to do but to
have recourse with you to the common cause, 
the heat of the blood, inflamed by flogging of
the loins, to increase the warmth of the reins, 
and provoke a venereal appetite. From hence, 
the supine situation of the body contributes to 
emissions in sleep, by irritating the heat of the, 
loins, from hence the same parts are provoked to 
venery by violent friction, a pleasure which cost
a certain gentlemen his life at Paris. Lastly, 
from hence, we apply cooling medicines to the 
loins in a troublesome gonorrhœa, Actuarius ap- 
plies plaisters to the reins, which strengthen and
yet do not at all heat. But, Oribasius applies 
plates of lead to the loins, and in this case dis-
tinguishes the loins from the reins: for in his
fragment, Of proper Diet for all Seasons of the 
Year,

[16] 
Year, which was first published at Basil, by Al- 
banus Torinus, 1528. He seriously advises a- 
gainst cooling the loins too much, for fear of
cooling the reins by that means, I shall say no 
more of the office of the reins towards the ge- 
nerating of the feed, because the famous Wal- 
læus has called it in question from the principles
of circulation, and he was a person whose scholar 
I shall be always proud to own myself. That 
was a heresy of those times, which had many fol- 
lowers, and many masters, and beginning with 
great heat, was sensibly extinguished. Now the
curiosity of the ingenious is turned another way, 
and new employments succeed the old, since the 
learned physicians have begun to search with 
more eagerness into the hidden secrets of the
human system, and not to rest contented with
discoveries which were hitherto rather believed
than demonstrated. Farewell. 
From my Seat 
at Hagestadt, 
Oct. 24, 1669. 
J. BARTHOLIN.

OF THE 
USE 
OF 
FLOGGING. 
RECEIVE at last, my dear friend Cassius, 
the essay I promised you over a bottle, 
upon the uncommon subject of the use of rods, 
and the consequence of that subject, a discourse 
of the principal offices of the loins and reins. 
You may remember I engaged to send it you, 
when we supped together with our intimate 
friend, Martin Gerdesius, councellor to your 
most excellent prince, and your colleague. I 
can’t well recollect the first occasion of it, any
farther than that I affirmed, that stripes and 
strokes were of use in the cure of some distem- 
pers, which both of you looked upon as a para- 
dox: upon which I began to assert the truth of
my

[18] 
my observations from experience, and appeal to 
the physicians, who, in many of their writings, 
affirm the same. For instance, it is long since 
Titus, a disciple of Asclepiades (who flourished 
in Augustus’s time, as I have shewn in the Lives 
of the Physicians) directs us in his book on the
soul, that Madmen are to be managed by stripes 
and blows, and their senses to be recovered by 
that discipline. Cœlias Aurelianus, in his first
book, and fifth chapter, on the regulation of 
the passions, informs us, That it was no uncom- 
mon thing to order persons grown melancholy, 
or mad for love, to be beaten and corrected; 
and that the method very often answered, and 
brought the patients to a right use of their reason. 
Rhases, in his first book and fourth chapter on
Continence, frequently cites an eminent Jewish 
physician, who when all other means were un- 
successful, directs those mad for love, to be
bound and beaten stoutly with a lusty fist, nay, 
and to repeat the experiment often, if a good 
effect did not immediately follow; since (as he 
merrily applies the proverb) it is not one swal- 
low that makes the summer; Ant. Guainerius, 
in his Practical Treatises, chap. 109, agrees with
the opinion of Rhases. Valeseus de Taranta is 
of the same side of the question, chap. II, and I 
shall cite his words, If the patient be young, let 
him be flogged on the posteriors with rods; and
if the madness is not so cured, let him be put 
into a dark hole, and dieted with bread and wa- 
ter ’till he returns to his senses, and let this dis- 
cipline


[19]
cipline be continued. If we believe Seneca, in 
his sixth chap, v. II., of Benefits: Some quar- 
tans have been cured by blows, perhaps from 
the strokes warming the viscid bilious humour, 
and dissipating them by motion, as Lipsius right- 
ly conjectures in his commentaries. Hieronymus 
Mercurialis, in his fourth book, chap. 9, On 
the art of exercise, tells us, Other physicians
advised lean persons to be whipped, in order to 
plump their bodies: and Galen, in his twelfth 
book, chap. 6, Of the method of physic, proves 
the truth of the experiment a long time since, 
from the example of those who deal in the sale of
slaves: for it is certain that the flesh is raised 
by that practice, and so the food is more forcibly 
attracted to it; besides, it is a vulgar observation
and experiment to cure relaxed limbs, by the 
whipping them with rods of nettles, and so forc- 
ing the heat and blood into the cold and deaden 
parts of the body; besides which, Themison ad- 
vises the striking them with a ferula, as appear 
from book the second, chap. II, of Cœlius Au- 
relianus. Elidæus of Padua, in the 282 of his 
Medical Observations, does not scruple to for- 
ward the eruption of the small-pox, to order the 
tender bodies of infants to be stung with rods of
nettles: Thomas Campanella (a monk of the 
order of the Preachers), who I formerly knew 
at Naples, tells us an almost incredible story of the
use of blows in an obstruction of the belly: he 
says, in his third book, chap. 9, of Physic, That 
a prince of Italy, famous for his skill in music,
D could

[20]
could never go to stool, unless when beaten by a 
servant whom he kept for that purpose. He adds,
That this effect might follow from fear, forcing 
the spirits into the intestines; which reason I 
shall not dispute at present.
But what you could not so readily believe upon 
my affirmation, was, that there are persons who
are stimulated to venery by strokes of the rod, 
and worked into a flame of lust by blows; and 
that the part, which distinguishes us to be men, 
should be raised by the charm of invigorating 
lashes. But I will convince yon, my friend Cas- 
sius, that it is so, and when I have proved, by 
the testimony of no vulgar authors, that there 
are many experiments of the truth of it, I shall 
add some reasons and arguments why others have 
conceived it, and I think it possible and practi- 
cable. I shall not make many words of the 
stinging the parts with young nettles. For Mo- 
nyrius Taventius, in his second book of the Or- 
gans of Generation, asserts, That if sterility be
suspected from the shortness of the penis, that 
the defect may be amended, and the part be ex- 
tended by the use of that discipline. Besides, 
your admired Petronius prescribes the same me- 
thod to excite a languid inaptness to pleasure, 
Eucolpio, in the words of the author, says, 
“ That part of my body, in which I was for- 
“ merly a very Achilles, was quite languid and
“ dead it retired, cold as it was, colder than
“ winter, into my belly; and covered with a 
thousand

[21]
“ thousand wrinkles, and all looked more like a 
“ bag of leather in the water, than a man.” When 
Enothea, the priestest of Priapus. had promised 
him, that she would make it as stiff as a horn, 
she mixed up the juice of water-cresses with 
southern-wood, and besprinkles his thighs: then 
she takes a rod of young nettles, and gently 
stings all the parts from the navel.
But I am to give you an account of a rougher 
and stronger flagellation; and the first I shall 
cite upon this head, is Johannes Picus, Count of 
Mirandola, who flourished about a century and a 
half ago. He in his third book, against the 
atrologers, chap. 27, relates this of an acquaint- 
ance of his. “There is now alive, says he, a 
“ man, of a prodigious, and almost unheard of 
“ kind of lechery: for he is never inflamed to
“ pleasure, but when he is whipt; and yet he is
“ so intent on the act, and longs for the strokes
“ with such an earnestness, that he blames the 
“ flogger that uses him gently, and is never 
“ throughly master of his wishes unless the 
“ blood starts, and the whip rages smartly o’er the
“ wicked limbs of the monster. This creature 
“ begs the favour of the woman whom he is to
“ enjoy, brings her a rod himself, soaked and 
“ hardened in vinegar a day before for the same 
“ purpose, and intreates the blessing of a whip- 
“ ping from the harlot on his knees; and the 
“ more smartly he is whipt, he rages the more ea- 
“ gerly, and goes the same pace both to pleasure 
D2 “and

[22] 
“ and pain. A singular instance of one who finds 
“ a delight in the midst of torment; and as he 
“ is not a man very vicious in other respects, he 
“ acknowledges his distemper, and abhors it.” 
So far Picus from whom Nevizanus in his Mar- 
riage Rites, and Campanella in the place before 
cited quotes it. If I am not mistaken, there is 
another person much like Picus’s acquaintance, 
mentioned by Cœlius Rhodiginus, in his Ancient 
Readings, book the 11th, chap. 15, From him 
Andreas Tiraquellus cites, in his Laws of Wed- 
lock, the 15th, and number the 5th. Cœlius 
relates the story in this manner;  “It is certain, 
“ upon the oath of credible persons, that not 
“ many years since, there lived a man not of a
“ salaciousness resembling that of cocks, but 
“ of a more wonderful, and almost incredible 
“ sort of lechery; who the more stripes he re- 
“ ceived, was the more hurried to coition. The 
“ case was prodigious, since it was a question
“ which he desired most, the blows, or the act 
“ itself, unless the pleasure of the last was mea- 
“ sured by the number of the former: besides, 
“ it was his manner to heighten the smartness of
“ the rod with vinegar the day before it was to 
“ be used, and then to request; the discipline 
“ with violent entreaties. But if the flogger 
“ seemed to work slowly, he flew into a passion, 
“ and abused her. He was never contented un- 
“ less the blood spung out, and followed the 
“ lashes; a rare instance of a man who went an
“ equal pace to pleasure and to pain, and who,
“ In

[23]
“ In the midst of torture, either satisfied or ex- 
“ cited a pleasing titillation, and a furious itch 
“ of lust." We may add another of the same 
nature to these, from Otho Brunselsius, a famous 
physician, who in his Physical Dictionary, under 
the word Coition, says, “That at Munich, the 
“ seat of the Duke of Bavaria, there lived a man
“ who never could enjoy his wife, if he was not 
“ soundly flogged to it before he made the at- 
“ tempts.” I subjoin a new and late instance, 
which happened in this city of Lubeck, where 
I now reside: a citizen of Lubeck, a cheese- 
monger by trade, lived in the Millers-street, was 
cited before the magistrates among other crimes, 
for adultery; and the fact being proved, he was 
banished. A courtesan with whom this fellow 
had often an affair, confessed before the Deputies
of the State, that he could never have a forcible 
erection, and perform the duty of a man, ’till 
she had whipped him on the back with 
rods; and that when the business was over, that
he could not be brought to a repetition, unless
excited by a second flogging. The adulterer at 
first denied the charge; but being seriously
pressed about the subject, he confessed the fact. 
For the truth of this narration, I appeal to the
judges appointed by the Senave, Thomas Stor- 
ningius and Adrian Mollerus, my friends, who, 
as you know, are still living. Besides, it is not 
many years since that a person of a small post in a
noted town in Holland, very much addicted to
venery,

[24]
venery, was catched in the very act with a wo- 
man, whom he could never effectually enjoy 
without being stimulated by flogging, The poor 
man, upon an information to the magistrates, 
paid severely for his lust by the loss of his 
office.* 
Hœc suit in toto notissima sabula vulgo.  
O’ er the whole town the noted story roll’d. 
By merry cits at every meeting told. 
Now since, I believe, you neither would, nor 
can you deny the truth of these instances, let us
next consider what reason can be given for an 
action so odd and uncommon. If you have re- 
course to the astrologers, they will impute the
whole of the business to the stars, and accuse 
heaven that sometimes provokes such an appetite 
in man, by a peculiar and hidden influence. 
* Perhaps the oddest whim among whipping anecdotes is 
that of a certain nobleman, who flourished in the reign of
George II. This singular character rented a house in St. 
James’s-place, and made an elderly good-looking woman 
housekeeper. It was this woman’s business one day of each
week to provide every article for scrubbing out a room, and
to engage two pretty women to meet him there on the day;
one to represent a housekeeper, and the other a chamber- 
maid. While he was scrubbing the room, he fancied him- 
self a parish girl, and he did his work so very bad, that one or 
the other of the women, or both, whipped him in the same
unmerciful manner those poor girls are whipped by cruel 
mistresses.
They

[25]
They will say, as Picus expresses it, That the 
man’s propensity to Venus was caused in his ge- 
niture, and distined to flogging by opposite and 
threatening rays of the stars; on which subject 
Franciscus Junctinus takes a great deal of pains 
to instruct us in the calculation of nativities, 
chap. 6. But since the heavens and the stars are 
universal causes, and so cannot occasion such par- 
ticular effects in one or two individuals, Picus 
for good reason rejects their influence, and en- 
quires after a nearer and more immediate reason. 
He thinks it was occasioned in his acquaintance 
by custom; for so he proceeds in his narration, 
“ When I seriously enquired of him the cause of
“ this uncommon plague, his reply was, I have 
“ used myself to it from a boy. And upon re- 
“ peating the question to him; he added, that he
“ was educated with a number of wicked boys, 
“ who set up this trade of whipping among 
“ themselves; and purchased of each other these
“ infamous stripes at the expence of their mo- 
“ desty.” Of the same opinion is Cœlius, who 
has transcribed both Picus’s history and opinion. 
His words are, “Now it is less wonderful, that 
“ this uncommon vice should be known by the 
“ person; and that he should hate and condemn 
“ himself for it; but by the force of a vicious
“ habit gaining ground upon him, he practised 
“ a vice he disapproved. But it grew more obstin- 
“ ate and rooted in his nature, from his using it 
“ from a child, when a reciprocal friction among
“ his school-fellow used to be provoked by the 
“ titillation

[26]
“ titillation of stripes. A strange instance what a 
“ power the force of education has in grafting
“ inveterate ill habits on our morals.” So far 
they: for my part, I don’t deny the great influ- 
ence of custom, and Aristotle has long since in- 
formed us, both in his treatise on Memory and 
his Ethics, that it is a sort of second nature:
which Ennius observes in these lines. 
Usus longus mos est, ac meditatio crebra:
Hunc tandem assero naturam mortalibns esse. 
Long use, and frequent thinking, custom
makes, 
And this with man, at last, grows into nature. 
And Galen, in his book of Habits, elegantly
shews the great force and influence of custom, 
and calls it Second Nature. I allow, in the in- 
stance given by Picus and Cœlius, that custom 
in a tract of time might contribute something
to the cause; but in the case produced by Brun- 
selsius and mine, that cause will not answer. 
And again, as Thomas Campanella says in the 
place before cited. Why did the rest of this
youthful fraternity go on in the same, as well as
this acquaintance of Picus? For custom only 
effects something particular in one or two indi- 
viduals. Neither is it probable, that all those
boys we mentioned began their youth with ex- 
posing their chastity to sale, with this reciprocal 
communication of vice, and used rods at the 
first

]27]
first to, provoke lechery. I congratulate our 
Germany, that these vices of preverse lust, these 
disgraces of children, and mutual pollutions of 
males, are almost unknown among us, and if by 
accident such a case happens, the offenders are 
severely punished, by being burnt for their 
crimes. “The Germans know no such thing, 
“ and men live with more regard to morality 
“ near the ocean, as Quintilian faith of our an- 
“ cestors, in his declamation for the soldier Ma- 
“ rianus, whose chastity had been attempted by
“ a Tribune, on which I have dilated more in 
“ my commentary upon the Death of Hippo- 
“ crates.” 
Since then neither the stars nor custom are the 
cause why stripes excite venery, we must see if
there be any other reason; in the search after 
which, we must trace the matter a little higher
before we can explain it. 
We are to understand then, that this flogging
and whipping with rods, was practised on no 
part of the body but the back, which the Lubeck
strumpet confessed, and is manifest of all the 
rest; for it is impossible that the penis can bear 
the strokes of rods, undoubtedly not to an erup- 
tion of the blood; and we all know the back is 
frequently used so. Now the loins compose the 
chief part of the back: for that part of the 
body that takes its rise from the five vertebrœ, 
which are placed behind the vertebrœ of the
thorax, is continued quite to the os sacrum.
E These

[28]
These parts the muscles, skin, and fat, cover 
outwardly; inwardly they are surrounded and 
braced by the muscles. The reins adjoin to 
these, the left and right, one on each side, and
take up about the space of four vertebrœ; and 
are annexed to the vena cava and the large 
artery: but the reins receive as well from the 
vena cava as the arteria magna, large and notable 
vessels which are called emulgents, each receives 
of each side one vessel, a vein, and an artery, 
which by many ramifications are variously dis- 
persed into the substance of the reins themselves. 
On the right of the vena cava, just under the 
emulgent, arises the right seminal vein; and in the
same place, from the arteria magna, arises the 
seminal artery, both desceending into the right 
testicle. On the left, the seminal artery arising
from the trunk of the arteria magna, and the se- 
minal vein from the left vein of the emulgent, are 
both inserred into the left testicle. Besides these, 
there are nerves coming from the part of the 
spinal marrow, contained in the vertebræ:, that 
reach to the reins, and not only pierce their coats, 
but penetrate their very substance. Lastly, the 
ureters, produced from the cavity of the reins 
themselves, are inserted into the bladder. As we 
may call all these by a single appellation of the
loins, so we may very properly assign one and 
the same common use to them all, as Marsilinus
Cagnatus rightly determines, in his Various 
Readings, lib. IV. chap. 7. Authors indeed 
have been very inquisitive into the use of the sin- 
gle parts, of the bones, muscles, reins, and ves- 
sels;

[29]
sels; but have not so well considered what they
altogether contribute to one common use. 
Cagnatus is of opinion, that all of them, but 
each in a different manner, are appropriated as 
well for the elaborating the seed, as performing
the work of generation, which the philosopher 
calls the most natural. Hieronymus Montuus, 
and Tiraquellus, seems to countenance this opi- 
nion, and that with good reason and judgment. 
For it is evident from the unanimous consent 
of all writers whether sacred or prophane, that
antiquity attribute some such office to the loins, 
reins, and sides; As for the Scriptures, they 
frequently appropriate the work of generation 
to the loins, as in the thirty-fifth chapter of Ge- 
nesis. verse I. Kings shall proceed from thy loins. 
And in the epistle to the Hebrews, chap. VII. 
ver. 15. The sons of Abraham, are said to have 
come from his loins; and ver. 16, Levi, is said, 
to have been in his loins. From whence Basil 
the Great, in his commentary on Isaiah, remarks
thus: In many places of the Scripture, the loins 
are put tor the organs of generation. And Ori- 
gen, in homily the first, on the 36th psalm, ver. 
the 8th, upon these words, My loins are filled 
with a sore disease, comments thus; The loins 
are said to be the receptacle of the human feed, 
from whence that kind of sin is here insinuated 
which is the effect of lust. It is a proverb a- 
mong the Hebrews, To gird the loins, signify- 
ing to preserve their chastity, and forbear lewd- 
E2 ness,



[30] 
ness. In this sense GOD speak to Job, in the 
fourth chapter, ver. 2, Gird up thy loins like a
man; that is, restrain like a brave man thy ap- 
petite, as Isidorus says, In these vessels that they
may be prepared to refill, since in them is the 
seat of lewdness. We may compare Suidas, with 
this passage. St. Jerome interprets that of the
prophet Nahum, Look upon thy way, strength- 
en thy loins, and secure thy virtue. So that of
John the Baptist, Matth. III. ver. 4. Who had a 
leathern girdle about his loins; and whom upon
that account Gregory Nazianzen, and Nicetus, 
would have us imitate. Neither is Jeremiah, 
chap. 1. ver. 16; nor Isaiah, chap. XXXII. ver. 
II; nor St. Paul to the Ephesians, chap. IV. 
ver. 14. to be otherwise understood; nor Solo- 
mon, when he speaks of a virtuous woman. Pro- 
verbs XVI. She girt her loins with courage. 
In St. Peter’s epistle too, chap. I. ver. 19. To
be girt on the loins of the mind, signifies, as 
Montuus, in the place before cited, observes, to
drive luxurious thoughts from the soul. I am 
mistaken too if the Romans had not this mean- 
ing in view, when they accounted a person girt, 
as an instance of modesty, regularity, and a 
good mind; and ungirt, as a token of dissolute
morals; upon which head, I have said more in 
my life of Mecænas. At this very day it is the 
custom in France, to present those who carry the 
prize of poetry with a silken girdle, as a trophy
to gird their loins with. To this purpose Ran-
chinus; in his commentary upon Hippocrates’s 
oath, remarks the necessity of a physician being
chaste;

[31]
chaste; because a girdle signifies a binding of the 
reins, and, an abstinence from an immoderate 
use of the loins. From hence the ancients 
thought Diana the goddest of chastity, always 
wore a girdle; and from hence the words to un- 
loose the girdle; in the conjugal ceremony, de- 
notes the loss of virginity; and Ætius rightly 
observes. That the use of venery is prejudicial 
to such who have weak reins and loins, and such
persons are therefore called broken loined. Eu-
stathius, in the catalogue of the ships, recites a
proverb on these persons. 
Lumhos solutus, tanquam ascellus Mysius. 
Weak in the loins, as Mysius the ass. 
Which Junius explains, as spoken of soft, effe- 
minate, and un-loined men. Upon the same 
score is Petronius’s Satire; those of loose loins
are those who were enervated by venery, such
as Catullus speaks of, epig. XVI. 
Qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos 
Poor weakly things, who cannot move their 
loins. 
To these Martial opposes, book V. 
Lascivos docili tremore lumbos. 
Salacious loins for frequent motion apt.
And

[32]
And the author of a free poem says, verse 18
Ecquando Theletusa circulatrix, 
Crissabit tibi fluctuante lumbo. 
When will the clasping Theletusa rise 
To my embrace with waving loins, and thighs? 
For to fluctuate, is to move often, and toss up
and down, in the manner of a wave. The La- 
tins call it Crissare. For that signifies an immo- 
dest kind of dance, which we now term il Bar- 
gamasco; and which is never danced but by peo-
ple in masks. Juvenal speaks of them thus: 
—plausuque prohatœ, 
Ad terram tremulo descendunt clune Puellœ, 
The dancing girls, in wanting motions bend, 
Shake as they rise, and with a clap descend. 
Arnobius says of these representations, lib. 2. 
“The lascivious multitude would run into the
“most extravagant postures of body, and caper, 
“and sing, and turn themselves round in a circle, 
“and at last, by the activity of their loins, raise
“their posteriors and thighs into a swimming ele- 
“gancy of motion.” You may consult, it you 
please, on this occasion, the epistle of Megara to
Bacchis, concerning Thryallis, Persius has this 
in view, when speaking of lascivious verses, that
raises a prunency in the audience, he says. 
—cum

[33]
—cum carmina lumhum 
Intrant, & tremulo scalpuntur ubi intima verse.
Such luscious songs as pierce the secret chine, 
Tickle the loins, and work the lustful spine. 
And Juvenal speaking of the pipes at the bonœ
Dea. 
Nota Bonœ secreta Deœ, cum tibia lumbos 
Excitat, & cornu pariter vinoq; seruntur- 
When music, and when wine to lust conspire 
Provoke the blood, and set the loins on fire. 
Upon this account Isidorus, in the passage be- 
fore recited, derives the word loins from the 
lasciviousness of lust, because both the cause and
feat of corporeal pleasure lies in them. Nicolaus 
Perotius, in his Cornucopia, derives it more 
plainly from the word lubido; that lumbi comes
from lubendo, by inserting the letter m, as is fre- 
quent in derivations. So Martinius, in his Lexi- 
con, derives cumbo from cubo, pango from pago, 
frango from frago. 
Again, as this office is attributed to the loins, 
so it is to the reins, which are a part of the loins
and in regard of the formation of the body, a 
very principal one. That these administer to 
generation is hinted 2 Kings, chap VIII, verse 12. 
The son who comes out of thy reins. From 
whence Tertullian, in his book On the resurrec- 
tion

[34]
tion of the flesh, calls the reins conscious of seed.
Hesychius the presbyter, in his commentaries on 
Leviticus, lib. I says, The reins are the servants
of the seed in coition; and soon after, The seeds 
of coition are in the reins. St. Augustin on the
eighth psalm, writes, That the pleasure of ve- 
nery are signified by the word reins. And St. 
Jerome, in his commentary on the prophet Na- 
hum, affirms. That all the parts that contribute to
coition come under the appellation of the reins; 
and he repeates almost the same word often in his
commentary on Ezekiel, Farther Nicholas Lyra 
explains these words of Jeremiah; and the same 
in the Revelations, Searching the reins and heart, 
thus, examining and punishing libidinous and 
evil thoughts. For in the Scripture language, 
by the heart is meant the thoughts; and by the 
reins is understpod concupiscence. Therefore the 
Psalmist, in the twenty sixth psalm, desires GOD
to purify his heart and reins; and the church 
from him uses it in the same sense in this hymn. 
Purify our reins and heart by the fire of thy Ho- 
ly Spirit’ that we may serve thee with a chaste 
body, and be accepted by thee with a clean 
heart. The divines too in general understand by
the precept in Exodus, to those who eat the Pas- 
chal Lamb, to bind up their reins, an abstinence
from lust. Ausonius has expressed the indul- 
gence of lust, by the use or the reins. 
Utere rene tuo. 
Epig. XIII.
Go, exercise thy reins, 
And

[35] 
And it is a common jest among the vulgar to say, 
That those who sacrifice to Venus purge their 
reins, which is the reason that Hippocrates, Ari- 
slotle, Galen, Ætius, Avicenna, and abundance 
of other physician assert, that an intemperate use 
of venery is prejudicial to the reins. Hence it 
is that the reins were dedicated to Venus by the 
ancients: for Fulgentius, in his mythology, in 
the fable of Peleus and Thetis, cites Democri- 
tus’s physiology to prove that the Heathens 
thought, that every part of the human body was 
under the influence of a peculiar deity; so they
assigned the head to Jupiter, the arms to Juno, 
the eyes to Menerva, the breast to Neptune, the 
waist to Mars, the reins to Venus, and the feet 
to Mercury. But lastly, if we enquire into the 
etymology and derivation of the word varro, 
whom Quintilian stiles, the most learned of the
Romans, derives renes, as if the canals of the 
obscene humours, that is, the seed, arose from
them, if we believe Lactantius and Isidorus. 
Nor is there any reason that we should, as some
have done, understand the urine by the obscene 
humour: for Isidorus explaining varro, says, 
“The veins and marrow distil a thin fluid into
“the reins, which liquor being re-dissolved, 
“runs from the reins in the heat of the venereal 
“act, which no man in his senses can think 
“spoken of the urine.” The Hebrews too de- 
rive the reins from a word that imports concupi- 
scence. 
And now because the reins are situated in the 
loins near the side, they too were believed to con- 
tribute

[36] 
tribute to venery, and the work of generation. 
Thus, the modestest of women according to fame, 
Penelope, when she was to make a trial of the 
strength, and robust sides of her suitors, brings
them to the bow, and bids them stretch the 
string 
Penelope vires juvenum tentabat in Arcu: 
Qui latus argueret, corneus Arcus erat. 
Her suitors by the bow the matron tried: 
This was the test of ev’ry manly side. 
As Ovid in the eighth elegy says, and Penelope
does not deny it in the following sixty-ninth 
epigrim. 
Nemo meo melius nervum tendebat Ulysse: 
Sive illi laterum, seu suit artis opus. 
Qui quoniam periit modo vos intendite: qualem
Esse virum sciero, vix sit ut ille mues.  
The bow-string none like my Ulysses drew. 
Whether by flight or strength his arrow flew; 
Since he is dead, by that your pow’rs be  
tried,
Who proves his manly force and lusty side 
Best by the bow, succeeds him in his bride.  
From whence, To try the side in Martial, signi- 
fies to give a trial of your strength in venereal 
affairs

[37]
affairs, book VII. epig. LVII. And in Ovid, 
book II. eleg. X. To give strength to the sides, 
is to excite lust. 
Et lateri dahit in vires alimeata voluptas. 
Pleasure is thus with nutriment supplied. 
And give a lusty vigour to the side. 
And in Apuleius, book VIII. The industry of
the side is a potency in lust. “They brought, says
“he, a lusty countryman well furnished with an
“industry of sides, and a length of label.” So 
in Juvenal, and Ovid, to spaie the sides, is to
abstain from venery. Thus the former on the
Catamite, sat. 6. 
—Nec queriiur, qod 
Aut lateri parcas, nec quantum jussus anheles. 
Nor is the case how much you spare your sides, 
Or at what cost of breath the matter rides. 
And in the Art of Love, book II. 
Et lateri ne parce tuo; pax omnis in illo est. 
Spare not your sides for all your hopes are there. 
On the other hand, to brake the sides in Martial, 
is to indulge pleasure too much, book XI epig.
CV. 
F2 Et


[38]
Et juvat admiffa rumpere luce latus. 
He lets the sun behold his play, 
And brakes his sides in open day. 
And again, book XII. epigram XCVIII. 
Rumpis Baffe latus; sed in comatis.
You, Baffus, take a silly pride. 
But 'tis with boys, to burst your side.
So in Tibullus, or whoever is the author of the
Iamoics to Priapus. 
Et inquietus inguina arrigat tumor, 
Neque incitare cesset, usque dum mibi
Venus jocosa molle ruperit latus. 
Unruly tumours, panting for delight, 
Erect their nerve, and stimulate the sight. 
Nor cease to glow, till Venus often tried
In mirthful pleasure first my languid side. 
Petronius, in his satire, mentions the convul- 
sions of the side, “I am afraid, says he, I 
“should have raised convulsions in my side.” 
In other places, the sides are said to be weak, 
Worn out, enervated, drained, languid, wearied; 
which phrase amounts to be exhausted by venery. 
Ovid, in the tenth elegy, of the third book. 
Vidi ego cum foribus lassus prodiret amator, 
Invalidum referens, emeritumque latus.
I

[39]
I have beheld the wearied lover go
From the fair dame ridiculously slow, 
His sides all saint, exhausted all below. 
Catullus, in epigram VII. 
Quur non tam latera exsututa pendas? 
Why not display thy dry, thy sapless sides? 
Prapus, in the libertine verses, epigram XV. 
Ipsi cernitis exsututus ut sim, 
Confectusque, marcerque, pallidusqve, &c. 
Defecit latus, & periculosam 
Cum tush miser expuo salivam. 
You see how dryly drain’d I fail. 
All wasted, meager, thin, and pale; 
My sides are spent, a short drawn breath. 
And bloody cough portend my death. 
Suetonius; in the life of Caligula, chap. 26. 
has this remarkable passage, “Valerius Catullus, 
“a youth of a consula family, said publicly, 
“that Caligula was endorsed by him, and that 
“his sides were quite tired with the use of his
“bedfellow.” Apuleus, book VIII. recites this 
manner of salutation, “ May you live long and 
“please your masters, and spare my now decayed
sides." From all which the point is as plain, to
use the words of Plautus.
Quam

[40]
Quam Solis radii olim, quam sudum est, solent. 
Clear as the noon-day-fun’s transpiercing rays. 
And that this is no new or modern opinion, 
but founded on the unanimous consent of all an- 
tiquity, is evident from the testimony of the 
Scripture, wherein the loins, and its adjacent 
parts, and the reins are said to contribute to the
work of generation. Now a general judgment 
or opinion of the learned, as your civilians, my
friend Cassius, express themselves, cannot be to- 
tally false. And Aristotle in his Topicks says, 
“Such things are probable, as appears so to all, 
“or most or at least to the wise, and them either 
“all, or most, or such whose wisdom is most 
“acknowledged or experienced, and who have 
“got fame and reputation on that account." 
In the next place, it is worth our while to enquire
farther into the reasons upon which this opinion
is founded; for by this means we shall at the 
same time discover the cause why strokes and 
stripes, inflicted on the loins, are incentives to
lust. Cagnatus, for his part, and Montuus, who 
inclines to his opinion, attribute the whole bu- 
siness to the loins, as consisting of those parts we
were just now reciting, that is, the vertebræ, 
muscles, reins, veins, arteries, and nerves. 
However, he makes the seminal veins and arte- 
ries the chief agents, as being the part that af- 
fords the materials for the feed, and contain in
themselves, and send down to the testicles that 
whitish

[41]
whitish fluid, which either actually is, or will 
soon be worked into seed; and he affirms, that 
the desire of ejecting the seed is excited by the 
swelling of this fluid in the veins and arteries, 
and from whence nocturnal pollutions are caused, 
especially in such persons, whose vessels are ex- 
traordinarily heated by lying upon their backs. 
Bartholomæus Montagnana, and Nemesius the 
philosopher, assigns the whole operation to the 
reins, a part of the loins, which is agreed to 
by Matthæus and Garyopontus, a Latin physi- 
cian among the moderns. And very lately the 
famous Sennertius, once my preceptor (and who 
while he lived, my much respected friend). Pe- 
trus Laurenbergius and Casper Hoffman are of 
the same opinion, and yet they do not all explain
the matter after the same manner. Bartholo- 
mæus Montagnana, in his examination of the 
passage of Avicenna, say. We must diligently
observe why Avicenna declares, That the imbe- 
cillity of the reins, may be said to be the cause
of the defect of coition; and after he has affirm- 
ed, that the seminal matter has acquired an ade- 
quate perfection from the disposition and tem- 
perment of the testicles, he subjoins, That 'tis
necessary that the same matter should be pre- 
disposed in the superior member, where the di- 
gestive faculty is more powerful, as in the liver 
and reins, in the one more remotely, in the o- 
ther more nearly; and from whence he concludes 
it is impossible that a genuine feed should be
formed, unless those parts, the liver and the 
reins, are duly organized and complexioned in
all

[42]
all its properties. But Neresius is of opinion, 
that there is only a kind of saltness transmitted 
from the reins to the testicles, which excites a 
desire, or rather a tittillations in the genitals, 
and so in the same manner contributes to venery. 
His words are, The reins are the purgers of the 
blood, and the cause of the appetite to coition; 
for the veins, which descending to the testi- 
cles, pass through the reins, and there imbibe a 
salt humour and an irritating faculty, after the
same manner as a sharp puncture under the skin 
makes an itching, and in the same degree as the 
consistence of the testicle is softer that the skin
itself, they so much the more when stimulated 
by that salt pungency, raise a furious desire of
emitting the feed. The words of Isidorus before 
cited, make for the same purpose. Matthæus’s 
opinion is much the same, only he attributes 
more to the left rein than to the right; for, says 
he, the left seminal vein, situated in the emul- 
gent, near the left rein, furnishes a blood diluted
with a good deal of serous salt, to raise and sti- 
mulate the parts to the act of generation. Lau- 
renbergius affirms, that the reins in general, con- 
tribute to generation: but in the disputation be- 
fore cited, he explains himself much after the 
same manner as Garyopontus does, when he 
say, The reins are by nature muscular, and have 
nerves planted in their cavities, which contains
the generative feed. So that he attributes the 
formative power of the feed to the reins, and in 
such a manner as to believe that it is elaborated 
and contained in them. Sennertus is of the 
same

[43]
same opinion, though he founds it on other rea-
sons, and explains himself more clearly, and 
with better evidence from anatomical inspection 
than Garyopontus, who does not seem to have 
been very skilful in that science, Sennertus 
think that there is not only a stimulous, commu- 
nicated from the reins to the genitals, but that 
the feed itself is worked in them, and trans- 
mitted from them; which opinion Hoffman fol- 
lows, and Sennertus collected this principally 
from hence, because the reins have a peculiar 
parenchyma, as it appears not much different from
the substance of the heart, or as ritæus will 
have it, resembling the liver. Now Galen, in 
the seventh book of The Decrees of Hippocra- 
tes, and Plato, attributes a great and peculiar 
force to a peculiar parenchyma, in the forming
and working the blood, which is evident of all 
the parenchymas of the other viscera, as Beve- 
rovicius has amply proved. Again, since the e- 
mulgent vein is the greatest of all the veins that 
proceed from the vena cava, and carries more 
blood into the veins than is requisite for their 
nutriment, the artery too is larger than only to
serve to depurate the serous humour, and there- 
fore he thinks it probable that nature, which 
makes nothing in vain, would not have formed 
those vessels so very large, unless with a view to
some particular end; and this end he concludes 
to be no other than carrying the arterial blood to 
the reins, so that it being there mixed with, and 
altered by the venous blood, it should supply 
materials for for forming the feed, which is af- 
G terwards

[44]
terwards to be transmited to the testicles. What con- 
firms this opinion of Sennertus, is, that according
to the different formation of the reins, and renal 
vessels (in which nature in other cases often sports) 
some men are more prone to lust than others, and 
far more notable performers. We have instances 
of this in Albertus’s observations, and in Rio- 
lanus’s anatomy. Each of these diffected the body
of a malefactor, and say, they found Three E- 
mulgents, descending into the right rein, and 
the spermatick veins on each side proceeding 
from the emulgent. Albertus rightly concludes
from hence, that the person must have a more 
plentiful flood of feed, and an inexhausted and
almost insatiable salacity; and which indeed the
fellow complained of a little before he was ex- 
ecuted, Riolanus says, that his man was whol- 
ly devoted to lust, and was hanged for having
three wives all living at the same time. Besides
these, Salmuth says, that he dissected two men 
that were famous for venery, the latter of which
had reins of a prodigious size, so as to equal three, 
nay, four of those in common men. Sennertus 
goes on, and enquires, unless this opinion be ad- 
mitted. whence proceeds that rank taste and 
odour, which is diffused all over the body, in
most uncastrated animals; but is most precepti- 
ble in the reins, especially in adult bodies, but
is not perceived in the reins of young and 
der persons, before they have conversed with fe- 
males. He adds besides, from Oribasius, that 
the reins are disordered by a retension of the 
feed, that the physicians, in recounting the signs
of

[45]
of warm reins, mention a propensity to venery,
lustful dreams, and nocturnal pollutions in the 
sleep; and that the practitioners constantly de- 
duce the quality of the feed from the constitu- 
tion oi the reins: thus as a ready salacity indi- 
cate warm reins; so a dis-appetite, and want of 
inclination that way, denotes cold reins: And 
lastly. that in a gonorrhœa, he proves from 
Aretæus and Alexander Trallianus, that remedies 
are applied for the diminution or alteration of
the feed, to the loins near the region of the reins. 
To support this opinion of Sennertus, we may 
add what Pliny says in his thirty-first book, chap. 
16. That plates of lead tied to the loins and 
reins, by their cold quality obstructed the in- 
clination to venery, And he adds an instance of
Calvus the orator, who, upon the sight of a wo- 
man, used to have a natural emission, which 
grew upon him to a kind of distemper, and was 
cured by these leaden plates. Galen in his chap- 
ter upon Health and in many other places, says, 
That he used these leaden plates to tame the 
lustful fallies, and restrain the nocturnal pollu- 
tions of some wrestlers; and in a priapism he ap- 
plies a plaister to the loins, made of Rose cakes 
and cold water. Cœlius Aurelianus, besides the 
leaden plates, advises the use of spunges dipt in 
cold water: besides these, Ætius not only applies 
the leaden plates to the loins, and other coolers, 
but condemns the lying upon the back, for fear 
the parts of the loins should be over-heated and 
the distemper by that means increased. To these 
we may add, Oribasius and Paulus Ægineta, 
G2 both


[46]
both of which agree In the same point; the lat- 
ter of which, forbids even diureticks in a go- 
norrhœa, for fear of prejudicing the reins, seated
in the region of the loins. Nor was Avicenna 
ignorant of it, who places the defects of coition
among the signs of extenuated and worn-out 
reins, and among other things, be makes fre- 
quent copulation the cause or imbecillity of the 
reins, and advises abstinence from it as the means
ot cure. Aaron, a famous physician, mentioned 
by Rhases, knew this, who says, It the erection 
of the penis be languid, the cause is in the liver 
and reins. And Aristotle may be quoted to this 
purpose, who thought that other animals were 
not affected with a gonorrhœa as well as 
men, because they did not lye upon their 
backs, prob. X. On the contrary, high met- 
tled hories, when their loins and reins are heat- 
ed by the motion of their riders, run with a fu-
rious heat to venery. The Athenian matrons 
seem to have known this, who, when in their fa- 
mous feasts, they lay from their husbands, and
as Ovid says in his Metamorphosis book XI. 
Fab. XI. 
Peq; novum Noctes Venerem tactusq ; virileis
In Vetitis numerabant, &c. 
Held it a sin to follow Venus’s rites, 
Or touch a man the space of nine long nights. 
Made their beds of what the Latins call Vitrix or 
Agnus Castus. This is a kind of shrub appropri- 
ated


[47] 
ated to extinguished lust: for this purpose they 
shrewed the leaves ot it under their back, with 
an intent of restraining the generative power of 
the seed, and the appetite to venery in the reins 
and adjoining parts. Of this there are frequent 
instances in history, in Dioscorides, in Piny, Ga- 
len, and Ælian; nor is there any other reason 
for recommending the reins of animals, especi- 
ally those of the he-goat, as provocatives to co- 
pulation, or that Ætius should prescribe the parts 
above the reins, as a charm and incentive to lust, 
but because they have some analogy and simili- 
tude with human reins, for which reason they 
are supposed to asist them, and excite them to
perform the office of generation.* For this rea- 
son warm unguents, among other medicines, are 
usually prescribed to such persons, who are less 
ready in venereal affairs, and those to be applied
not only to the privities, but to the region of 
the reins; as also strong diureticks, as canthari- 
des, and the posture of lying upon the back, that 
by these methods the loins may be warmed, and 
the feed quickened in its motion to the testicles, 
and so cold constitutions become fired and raised
to venery. From whence Rhases, in his twelfth 
book, says As often as the loins are chased with
warm medicines, the penis will swell and be ex- 
tended in erection, And Misib the Arabian, a 
the same author says, That the heat of the back 
* This depends upon the old exploded maxim of the phi- 
losophers and naturalists, Similis simili gaudet.
asists 


[48]
asists luxury, (that it excites lust) and as the 
cooling of the back, and sleeping upon cold 
leaves, diminishes that appetite, so heat and 
warmth wonderfully increase it. 
From all which I draw this consequence, that 
the loins in general, and the parts they consist of, 
contribute chiefly to venery, and principally 
their veins and arteries, as being the canals of 
those fluid spirits, which is the opinion of Cag- 
natus. But that the grand instrument of all this 
is the parenchyma of the reins, by which the feed
first begins to be elaborated; and that it 
is perfected, and acquires an equable consist- 
ance, in its descent through the other seminal 
vessels; which, as it was Sennertus’s opinion, 
so it is mine. And yet what Nemisius, Isidoius, 
Matthæus, and Laurenbergius have observed, is 
to the purpose, that there is a kind of saltness
and serous matter communicated together with 
the feed, from the reins to the testicles, to pro- 
voke the titillation, and fill up the dunghill, 
(adimplaustrari) which very word Papias, the
grammarian, uses in his vocabulary. 
I farther conclude, that stripes upon the back
and loins, as parts appropriated for the generate-
ing of the feed, and carrying it to the genitals, 
warm and inflame those parts, and contribute very
much to the irritation of lechery. From all 
which, it is no wonder that such shameless 
wretches, victims of a detested appetite, such as 
we have mentioned, or others exhausted by too 
frequent

[49]
frequent a repetition, their loins and their vessels 
being drained, have fought for a remedy by flog- 
ging. For it is very probable, that the refri- 
gerated parts grow warm by such stripes, and 
excite a heat in the seminal matter, and that 
more particularly from the pain of the flogged 
parts, which is the reason that the blood and 
spirits are attracted in a greater quantity, till the 
heat is communicated to the organs of generation, 
and the preverse and frenzical appetite is satisfied, 
and nature, though unwilling, drawn beyond the 
stretch of her common power, to the commission 
of such an abominable crime. 
This, dear Cassius, is my opinion; but you
will object, that the persons I treat of, are such
as being exhausted by a licentious venery, made 
use of this remedy for the continuation of their 
ungovernable lust, and a repetition of the same 
filty enjoyment. But then you ask, since the case 
is so, whether a person, who has practised law- 
ful love, and yet perceives his loins and sides 
languid, (the subject of this treatise) may not 
without the imputation of any crime, make use 
of the same method, in order to discharge a debt 
which I won’t say is due, but to please the credi- 
tor? More plainly, the person that I would de- 
scribe, is such a Virgil does in the third book of
his Georgicks. 
Frigtdus in Venerem sertus frustraque laborem,
Jucundum trabit, & si quando ad prœlia venium,
Ut quando in stipulis vanus fine viribus ignis
Incassum surit, &c.
Languid


[50]
Languid and cold, he moves to work with 
pain. 
And dribbles at the lovely sport in vain; 
When at the best, ’tis like a stubble fir’d, 
Flashes in haste, and is in haste expired. 
Well, friend Cassius, why may not the reme- 
dy be made use of in the circumstances supposed? 
That you have no occasion for it, I am ready to 
take a thousand oaths, I who am a physician, and
from my own profession either know or ought to
know, and give a shrewd judgment that way, 
long since persumed I was no false guesser on 
your side. Your your young wife’s great belly, 
is an evidence to be depended upon beyond all 
exceptions, and to whom I wish a happy minute 
in due season: however, I won’t forbid you com- 
municating this remedy to others who may have
occasion for a flogging. 
Qui valide intorto verbere terga seces; 
Who with a notted whip may lash their backs.
The gates of the Muses, as the Greek proverb
says (that is of all professors of science), ought
always to be open, and especially of physicians; 
for as Scribonius Largus, in his epistle to Julius
Calistus, says, The imputation of a niggardly 
envy ought to be abominated by all people, espe- 
cially physicians, who if they are not according
to

[51]
to the intent of their profession, full of pity and
humanity, are objects of detestation both of GOD 
and man. 
Thus, my dear friend, to satisfy your curio- 
sity, I have explained my opinion to you with a
little more freedom than ordinary. Do you take 
it all, such as it is, in good part; love me still as
your friend, and pardon as you do the innocent 
raillery, which yet has its consequences of seri-
ousness, and so farewell. 
Lubeck, Sept. 7, 
1659. 
J. H. MEIBOMIUS.
H Henry



HENRY MEIBOMIUS, 
THE 
SON, 
To the Most EXCELLENT
THOMAS BARTHOLIN. 
I UNDERSTAND with a great deal of pleasure 
from Christianus Paullus, the excellent son 
ot tne great Simon Paullus, that my letter in
answer to yours came safe to your hands. The 
same person signified to me, in your name, that
you designed to reprint my father John Henry 
Meibomius’s epistle concerning the use of Flog- 
ging in Venereal Affairs, and the Office of the
Reins and Loins. Nothing could be more ac-
ceptable to me, than this your intention. As to
the epistle itself, it was occasioned by a free 
jocose conversation at an entertainment; and an 
H2 edition

[54]
edition of it was procured at Leyden, by that
great person to whom it is inscribed. However, 
it pleased many excellent persons all over Europe, 
and has been quoted by some in public prints. 
But there being at first only a few copies printed, 
to be given to friends, it began to be desired by 
the learned, and impatiently enquired after by 
the curious, the subject being, I don’t know 
how, very entertaining and alluring. I have of- 
ten been sorrow that I could not oblige my 
friends at their request, with the favour of a 
book; however, I was unwilling to put it to the
press again, partly because I do not approve of
every thing in it, and partly because I am un- 
willing, on my first entrance on the stage of 
Fame, to incur the censure of such to whom these 
papers, tinctured with a tickling salt, might 
seem too ludicrous and libertine; however, in 
the mean time it happened, that it was reprinted a
few years since, either at Leyden, or somewhere 
else, tho’ I know not who was the editor, which
I was not displeased with; but had I been pre- 
informed of it, that edition had come out much 
more correct. But now I am very much satis-
fied, and give myself joy that it has pleased you
to such a degree (whom Europe reckons among 
her first ornaments) as to think it worthy of a 
new impression, enlarged by additions of your 
own. You are now in no danger from the affect- 
edly sower, nor need you fear,
Rugato Cato tetricus labello 
Nasum Thinoceroticum minetur.

[55]
Left rugged Cato should to you oppose 
His wrinkled lips, and beastly length of nose. 
But these mysteries cannot otherwise be preferred, 
nor are we writing to Vestals, or uncultivated 
Sabines, but to physicians; however, the argu- 
ment deserves to be examined, nor do I question 
but you, who are a person of great wit and in- 
finite reading, have cited all the passages that can
adorn that subject; yet since my father, after 
the last edition of his epistle, has added some 
marginal notes to his copy, I transmit them to 
you to be inserted in their proper place, for the
enriching your new edition. Lastly, there are 
some things in this letter which relish of the 
Anti-Harveian times, in which I would rather 
own the error of my excellent father, than de- 
send it; especially since it is such a one, as was 
not only common to some learned men as well 
as himself, but even to some ages too. You 
know that saying of your Celsus, Light wits 
because they, have nothing, detract nothing from
themselves; a single confession of error, agrees 
with a great wit, who yet will retain, tor all 
that mistake, many valuable things; and why 
should not an error deserve pardon, which the 
person does not incur by his own obstinancy, 
but by the infelicity of the age he lives in. 
As for what he relates in the beginning of the
epistle, of the cure of distempers by flogging; 
that depends upon the authority of others and 
is beyond all exceptions. The moderns however 
seem

[56]
seem to account these remedies, if not worse 
than the disease, yet very ungrateful ones. Yet, 
as to the cure of madness by strokes, which he 
quotes from Cœlius Aurelius, Rhases, and others, 
although physicians have not taken notice of it 
lately, yet I learn from Bodin, that it was prac- 
tised but in this last age in England. The pas- 
sage stands thus in the fifth book of his common- 
wealth, Madness sometimes is heightened into 
frenzy, which kind of frenzy grows milder by 
strokes and whipping: for a company of madmen 
in London, confined in the same house, are se- 
verely chastised with rod at the last quarter of
the moon, at which time their frenzy is more 
powerful from the inflamation of their brain. 
When I began to pity their case, I understood 
from those that looked after them, that it was 
the most certain cure of this frenzy. The palms
of the Roman women were struck, and that was 
thought to facilitate parturition in the pregnant, 
and give fecundity to the barren. That custom was 
superstitious enough; and the Luperci were the 
only operators in it, who were clad in the vest 
of Juno, or a goat-skin, as Festus informs us; 
and the Romans themselves ridiculed it, as is plain
from the second satire of Juvenal. Some think, 
that sleep-walkers that rise in the night, ought 
to be foundly whipp’d; which experiment I my- 
self know succeeded in a certain instance, the 
distemper being happily carried off without a 
return, by a severe flogging.
After 

[57]
After these, my father cites the histories of 
flogging for the inciting of very, and begins
to enquire into the cause of it. He first rejects
the stars, and custom, and, if I am no mistaken,
has made it plain, that the cause of it cannot be
derived from these only. He next remarks, that
this flogging was only practised upon the back
and loins and think to deduce the cause from 
thence. To this purpose he shows, that the 
Scripture, as well as all antiquity, unanimously
attribute to the loins, reins, and sides, their par-
ticular offices in the generation of the seed, and 
the effect of venereal pleasure. And he has in-
deed quoted a great many passages from different
writers, and many more might be brought to the 
same purpose, especially from the poets, unless
the case was already evident, I do for the same
reason conclude, that the loins contribute much
to vereneal pleasure: but what he afterwards
undertakes to proves, that the seed is first elabor-
ated by the reins, situated in the loins, although
he has a great many famous men, both before
and since his time, of the same opinion; yet, in
my judgment, he has not proved that point.
For it is grenated at present, by the searchers into
truth, that the blood is carried by the emulgent
arteries to the reins, and from the reins, by the
emulgent veins, into the vena cava, and from
thence returns to the hearts; as also that the sper-
matick arateries received the blood from the
great artery, and that the spermatick veins bring
back the same from the seminal parts, partly
into the vena cava, and partly into the emulgent
vein,


[58]
vein, which motion of the blood is plainly proved 
by the construction of the valves in the veins. 
Now, from hence it is evident, that nothing de- 
scends from the reins to the testicles through the 
vessels. In the mean time it remains true, that 
warm loins contribute to the work of Venus, and 
cold ones obstruct it; and that the physicians 
rightly apply warm things to the loins for the 
exciting of lust, and cold thing for the suppress- 
ing it: for, as my father has righly observed from
Cagnatus and Montuus, there are larger vessels 
placed in the loins, in which, if the bloods grows, 
warms it must necessarily flow warmer down thro'
the spermatick artery, and dispose the seminal 
matter easily irritable, into a state of heat and
fervency. Next, as to the reins, this is my opi- 
nion, If they are more than ordinarily heated, a 
greater degree of heat will be communicated to 
the blood in its return through the emulgent 
veins; and since the blood is continually flowing
to the reins, and back again, a greater heat may
be communicated from the reins to the whole 
mass of blood, from whence the blood will de- 
scend warmer through the spermatick arteries. 
From hence it may be explained, why they who 
have hot veins are inclinable to venery, as well as 
the other phœnomena which my father has 
brought to prove his opinion. Perhaps too it 
may sometimes happen to those who have a hot 
state of blood, and are consequently more prone 
to lust, that the reins may grow warm by the 
continual accession of the blood, as is noted by
physicians; when by an error in diet the blood 
is

[59]
is inflamed, the reins generally suffer for it be-
cause greater quantity of blood is continually 
flowing there than to any other part: so then
lust does not depend so much upon the heat of 
the reins, as from the common cause, the heat of
the blood, and from thence proceeds lust, and
the heat of the reins, Farther I expalin the
matter thus; by the strokes of rods, the blood,
as well in the great as small vessels in the loins.
grows warm, and then in the reins themselves,
and lastly, from thence the whole mase of blood,
and therefor it flows more hot, and in a greater
quantity through the seminal arteries, till by the
wicked thoughts of these wretches, preparing
themselves for a venereal congress, it is turned
with a greater degree towards the spermatick
vessels. After the same manner, an prostuvium of
the seed is accelerated by a soft bed, or a supine
posture. 'Tis well known, that people who ride
on horse-back are prone to venery; and the same
was long ago observed in the Cento of problems,
that are published under the name of Aristotle,
the author gives this reason for it, problem X.
That they are affected by the heat and agitation,
in the same manner as in coition: Which is ex-
actly to my meaning; for the blood in the vessels
of the loins grows warm by these motions and 
jolting of the rider: and its motion is quickened
through the descending trunk of the aorta, and
so on to the seminal vessels Hippocrates in-
deed, in his book of Air, Water and Situation,
seems to testify the contray, where he say, That
those who ride much are rendered too unapt for 
I venery:

[60]
venery: but that is to be understood of the con- 
tinual riding of the Scythians, which proceed 
even to weariness, and so debilitated and relaxed 
the body, and of consequence suppress the irri- 
tation to venery: but that riding which we men-
tion from Aristotle, which only gently heats the 
loins, is to be understood moderate. I have no 
inclination now to go on and examine distinctly 
every point which my father has produced upon 
the subject, especially since all that Sennertus 
has and what is related by him. Dr. Highmore 
has already happily discussed his Anatomy, 
In the mean time, many of my father’s proposi- 
tions stand upon a good foundation only rejecting
that generating power of the feed lodged in the 
reins. The rest of his arguments are very evident. 
Some of the moderns may perhaps endeavour to 
explain these phœnomena otherwise, from their 
own hypothesis, as a certain ingenious person
did, who was firmly persuaded that the matter 
of the feed, was made of the chyle and not of 
the blood ; and that by strokes upon the loins, 
the swelling alveus was heated, and then that the
matter of the feed descended with a swister mo- 
tion to the genital parts: reasons very different
from these might be brought by such who are 
pleased with the fanciful hypothesis Saccus Ner- 
vosus, or nervous juice, which they think too 
affords matter for the feed; but it is not my bu- 
sinefs to enquire at present into the truth of their 
hypothesis. I perceive now that the observation 
is true in this instance, which Grœcinus In Col- 
umella formerly said of all kinds of inventions. 
That

[61]
That most people began new works with more 
boldness than they could maintain these that 
were before perfect. However, I think that the 
opinion I have proposed of the heat of the blood
in the loins, does not depend upon bare hypo- 
thesis, but certain experiment. If excellent 
Sir, you are pleased to approve of it, I shall be
much more confirmed in my opinion. Farewell, 
Written at Helm- 
stadt Aug 19, 
1669. 
HEN. MEIBOMIUS.