Note 122 — Second Part. (continued 2)

Luxus in the sense of sexual excess occurs not unfrequently in ancient writers, e.g. in Tacitus, Hist. IV. 14., Suetonius, Nero 29. Capua luxurians is well known from the history of Hannibal. It is worth noting that Paracelsus gives the name luxus to Venereal disease; he says, De causis et origine luis Gallicae, (Of the Causes and Origin of the French Contagion), bk. I. ch. 5.: Luxus autem nomen quod attinet, illud ab influentia, id est, efficiente causa desumptum esse intelligendum est. Est autem luxus irritatio quaedam ac titillatus spermatis, ad perficiendum actum venereum, a morbis in corpore latentibus causata, itaque Veneris impressione a morbo in actu ipso facta, tum ex vulgari luxu fit luxus morbi seu morbidus. Proinde luxus hic non naturalis sed Satyricus dicendus erit. (But luxus the name that is applied to it, this name must be understood as being taken from the influencing circumstance or efficient cause. Now luxus is a certain irritation or tickling of the seed, leading to the performance of the Venereal act and caused by diseases latent in the body, and so a strong motion of love being made in consequence of the disease in the act itself, then from the common expression luxus, is formed luxus of the disease, or morbid luxus. It follows this luxus will have to be called not natural, but Satyric luxus).