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This work is also appended to "Avis pour le Transport par Mer des Arbres, des Plantes vivaces, des Semences, et de diverses autres Curiosités d'Histoire Naturelle. Par L.H. Duhamel." Published at Paris, 1753. 12mo. Directions in what Manner Specimens of all Kinds may be collected, preserved, &c. By J.R. Forster. London, 1771.
Ell' prist son teint des beux lyz blanchissans, Son chef de l'or, ses deux levres des rozes, Et du soleil ses yeux resplandissans: Le ciel usant de liberalite, Mist en l'esprit ses semences encloses, Son nom des Dieux prist l'immortalite. That he is thus a characteristic specimen of the poetical taste of that age, is indeed Du Bellay's chief interest.
But, of all aphrodisiacs, the most certain and terrible in its effects are cantharides, commonly known as Spanish flies. That they exercise a powerful and energetic action upon the organization and stimulate, to the utmost, the venereal desire, is but too true. The effects, however, which these insects, when applied as a blister upon the skin, are known to produce, are insignificant when compared with their intense action upon the stomach when taken internally; nor is it the stomach only which is affected by them: the bladder experiences an irritation exceeding even that caused by the severest strangury. To these succeed perforation of the stomach, ulcers throughout the entire length of the intestinal canal, dysentery, and, lastly, death in the midst of intolerable agonies. Medical works abound with observations concerning the fatal effects of cantharides when unduly administered, whether from ignorance or for exciting the venereal appetite. The two following cases are recorded by Pabrol in his "Observations Anatomiques": "En 1752 nous fumes visiter un pauvre homme d'Organ en Provence atteint du plus horrible satyriasis qu'on saurait voir et penser. Le fait est tel. Il avait les quartes, pour en guérir prend conseil d'une sorcière, laquelle lui fait une potion d'une once de semences d'orties, de deux drachmes de cantharides, d'une drachme et demi de caboule et autres, ce qui le rendit si furieux