Curiositates eroticae physiologiae, or, Tabooed subjects freely treated in six essays, viz. : 1. generation. 2. chastity and modesty. 3. marriage. 4. circumcision. 5. eunuchism. 6. hermophrodism, and followed by a closing essay on death / by John Davenport.

  • Davenport, John, 1789-1877.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Curiositates eroticae physiologiae, or, Tabooed subjects freely treated in six essays, viz. : 1. generation. 2. chastity and modesty. 3. marriage. 4. circumcision. 5. eunuchism. 6. hermophrodism, and followed by a closing essay on death / by John Davenport. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2 7 eight years of age, having been violated by the executioner pre¬ viously to his strangling her. “ The Lombards,” says Gibbon, “ allowed the morgingcap immediately after the wedding night; and this famous gift, the reward of virginity, might equal the fourth part of her husband’s substance. Some cautious maidens, indeed, were wise enough to stipulate, beforehand, for a present which they were not too sure of deserving.”* Chastity was held in no less repute, the act of generation being, for the most part, associated with the idea of a brutish and purely animal function which appears to degrade our nature and lower us to the level of the brutes. In fact, ancient and modern religions have, with few exceptions, exacted the sacrifice of corporeal pleasures from their votaries, and, more especially, imposed upon their mistresses the vow of chastity, and the obli¬ gation of immolating at the altar the most endearing affections of our nature. This effort of continence and virtue, which manifests the empire of the mind over the body, is always ad¬ mired by man, because it seems to announce a superior nature and a sublimity of character which approaches him, in some degree, to the Divinity. Chastity, by preserving the vigour of the vital powers, and by returning into all the organs that superabundance of life which is concentrated in the genital parts, must, necessarily, increase the energy of all our functions. This physiological fact was known to the ancients,f who represented the Muses as * Decline and Fall, chap, xxxi. (note). 1 The ancient poets bear testimony, in their verses, to the esteem in which