Meibomius mentions the case of a citizen of Lubeck who, being accused and convicted of adultery, was sentenced to be banished. A woman of pleasure with whom this man had been for a long time intimate, appeared before the judges as a witness on his behalf. This woman swore that the man was never able to consummate the act of love with her unless he had been previously flogged, - an operation which it was also necessary to repeat before each successive indulgence.

"Je suis mort de 1'amour enterpris Entre les jambes d'une dame, Bien heureux d'avoir rendu Time, Au meme lieu oil je 1'ai pris." † See his work, contra Astrologos, Lib. III., cap. 27.

That this was a means employed by Abelard in his commerce with Heloisa, appears from the following passages in two of his letters to her;

"Verbera quandoque dabat amor non furor, gratia non ira quae omnium unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent."*

"Stripes which, whenever inflicted by love, not by fury but affection, transcended, in sweetness, every unguent,"

"Nosti quantis turpidudinibus immoderata mea libido corpora nostra addixerat et nulla honestatis vel Dei reverentia in ipsis diebus Dominies passionis vel quantarumque solemnitatem ut hujus luti volutabro me revocavit. Sed et te nolentem aut dissuadentem quae natura infirmior eras, ut saepius minis ac flagellis ad consensum trahebam.†"

"Thou knowest to what shameful excesses my unbridled lust had delivered up our bodies, so that no sense of decency, no reverence for God, could, even in the season of our Lord's passion, or during any other holy festival, drag me forth from out that cesspool of filthy mire; but that even with threats and scourges I often compelled thee who wast, by nature, the weaker vessel, to comply, notwithstanding thy unwillingness and remonstrances".

The renowned Tamerlane, the mighty conqueror of Asia, required a like stimulus,* the more so perhaps from the circumstance of his being a monorchis. †

* Petri Aboelardi Abbatis Rugensis et Heloissae Abbatissae Paracletensis Epistolae. Epist. I., p, 10.

† lbib. Epist. 111., p. 81.

The Abbe Boileau, in his well known and entertaining "His-toire des Flagellants," partly attributes the gross licentiousness of that period to the strange practice then in vogue of doing penance by being scourged in public; and his brother the celebrated poet and critic, defending the Abbe against the animadversions of the Jesuits, remarks very forcibly:

"Non, le livre des Flagellans,

N'a jamais condamne, lisez le bien, mes peres,

Ces rigidites salutaires,

Qui, pour ravir le Ciel, saintement violens, Exercent sur leurs corps, tant de Chretiens austeres:

II blame seulement ces abus odieux,

D'etaler et d'offrir aux yeux Ce que leur doit toujours cacher la bienveillance,

Et combat vivement la fausse piete, Qui sous couleur d'eteindre en nous la volupte Par I'austetrite meme, et par la penitence,

Sait allumer le feu de la lubricite.‡"

Flagellation, indeed, as well as the custom of wearing the hair-shirt, so common with the monks, and even with religious lay catholics, was, by the stimulus it imparted to the skin, and hence to the internal viscera, much more likely to increase the energy of the physiological functions, and thus excite the com-mission of the very acts they are intended to suppress.

* See Meibomius, p, 43, note a. Edit. Paris, 1792, 12mo.

† Name given to persons having only one testicle.

‡ Œuvres, Tom I. p. 283. Ed. 1714.

The Abbe Chuppe d'Auteroche, member of the Academie des Sciences, and who died in California a few days after the observation of the Transit of Venus in 1760, remarks that the stripes given to persons frequenting the vapour baths in Russia impart activity to the fluids and elasticity to the organs and gives additional stimulus to the venereal appetite.*

M. Serrurier records the following curious case."One of my schoolfellows, who found an indescribable pleasure in being flogged, purposely and wilfully neglected his duty in order to draw upon himself the correction, which never failed to produce an emission of semen. As may easily be imagined he soon began the practice of masturbation, in which he indulged to so frightful an extent that rapid consumption ensued, and he died, a most horrible and disgusting object, affording a melancholy example of that fatal vice. †

The case of Jean Jacques Rousseau is well known. When a child he was by no means displeased with the corrections administered to him by a lady considerably his elder, he even frequently sought for a whipping at her hands, especially after he perceived that the flagellation developed in him the manifest token of virility. But he must be allowed to give his own account of it. "Assez long temps," says he, "Madame Lam-bercier s'entint a la menace, et cette menace d'un chatiment tout nouveau pour moi me semblait tres effrayante, mais apres l'execution, je la trouvai moins terrible a l'epreuve que 1'attente ne l'avait ete, et ce qu'il y a de plus bizarre est que ce chati-ment m' affectionna davantage d'elle qui me l'avoit impose. Il fallait meme toute la verite de cette affection et toute ma douceur naturelle pour m'empecher de chercher le retour du meme traitement en le meritant, car j'avais trouve dans la douleur, dans la honte meme, un melange de sensualite qui m'avait laisse plus de desir que de crainte de l'eprouver dere-chef, par la meme main.

Ilest vrai que comme il se melait, sans doute, a cela quelque instinct precoce du sexe, le meme chati-ment recu de son frere, ne m'eut point du tout, parut plaisant."*

* Travels in Siberia in [661, Tom I., p. 319.

† Dictiunnaire des Sciences Medicales. Art. Pollution.

As flagellation is practised by striking the skin with a rod formed of twigs, until the heat and redness become more intense, so if the twigs be replaced by fresh nettles, the operation will become, - urtication.