Note 164 — ALAEDDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP. (continued 2)

For this aphrodisiac see vol. vi. 60. The subject of aphrodisiacs in the East would fill a small library: almost every medical treatise ends in a long disquisition upon fortifiers, provocatives, etc. We may briefly divide them into three great classes. The first is the medicinal, which may be either external or internal. The second is the mechanical, such as scarification, flagellation, and the application of insects as practised by certain savage races. There is a venerable Joe Miller of an old Brahmin whose young wife always insisted, each time before he possessed her, upon his being stung by a bee in certain parts. The third is magical, superstitious and so forth.