Summary
Summary of Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Desire gathers beliefs around it
John Davenport approaches desire through the stories people have told about it. His three essays bring together fertility symbols, reproductive troubles, love potions and ways of cooling desire. Kings, monks, doctors and ordinary couples appear alongside witnesses drawn from the Bible, Pliny, Montaigne and Rabelais.
The question running through these accounts is how much people understood and how much they believed. Davenport's dry humor leaves room for both human hope and common sense, beginning with the belief that creating life was sacred.
Key idea 2
Sacred symbols survive under new names
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Key idea 3
The mind can interrupt desire
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Key idea 4
Fear becomes a public ordeal
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Key idea 5
Love potions invite hope and fraud
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Key idea 6
Promised stimulants can bring real harm
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Key idea 7
Study offers a way to cool desire
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Key idea 8
Common sense stands beside hopeful belief
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Read the rest freeWho it’s for
This book will delight readers who love curious history, old medicine and folklore, and who enjoy a collector of odd facts quoting Montaigne, Rabelais and the court records of old France.
What this book is
What did people in every age believe about desire, and how much of it was folklore? John Davenport, an English writer who died in 1877, sets out to answer with dry humor. His three essays gather witnesses from the Bible and Pliny to Montaigne, Rabelais and French court records. They cover fertility symbols, impotence and sterility, love potions and the remedies used to cool desire. Along the way you meet kings, monks, doctors and ordinary couples, each with a story. The oldest idea comes first: the power to create life was once sacred.
In this summary
- 1Fertility symbols were once held sacredFree
- 2Impotence and sterility are different troubles
- 3Fear and the law made matters worse
- 4Love potions run from mandrake to hippomanes
- 5Foods, drugs and electricity were all tried
- 6Cooling desire has its own list
Key point 1 of 6
Fertility symbols were once held sacred
Davenport opens with the oldest religion. Nature was first worshipped through its power to bring forth life, and the symbols of that power seemed holy to the ancients, not shameful. He follows them through Egypt, Greece, Rome and India.
In India husbands gave brides a small jewel called the taly, marked with such an emblem. A papal legate ordered converts to wear a cross instead. The women refused, and the missionaries settled the quarrel by engraving a cross on the taly itself.
The surprise is that the old rites survive in Christian Europe under saints' names. Saint Foutin in Provence received wax offerings, and Protestants who captured Embrun in 1585 found his relic there.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Check yourself
How does Davenport distinguish impotence from sterility?
Right. “Davenport separates impotence, the inability to take part in the act, from sterility, where no child follows.”Not quite. “Davenport separates impotence, the inability to take part in the act, from sterility, where no child follows.”
What does Davenport consider the true causes behind supposed spells causing sexual failure?
Right. “Failure in love was blamed on spells and tested in courts, though he thinks fear and the imagination were the true causes.”Not quite. “Failure in love was blamed on spells and tested in courts, though he thinks fear and the imagination were the true causes.”
What does Davenport identify as the true stimulant?
Right. “His own conclusion is that the true stimulant is rich, easily digested food, such as dark meats and game.”Not quite. “His own conclusion is that the true stimulant is rich, easily digested food, such as dark meats and game.”
Questions about Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
What is Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs about?
It is three essays by John Davenport on fertility symbols, impotence and sterility, and the foods, drugs and potions people used to raise or lower desire. He draws on ancient writers, doctors, church records and court cases.
What is tying the points in this book?
It is an old French belief that a knotted cord, tied at a wedding, could make a groom unable to consummate his marriage. Davenport describes the spell, the trials, the counter-charms and why he thinks fear was the true cause.
What is the Judicial Congress?
It was a French court ordeal in which a husband accused of impotence had to show his powers before appointed examiners. Davenport traces its origins, gives real cases and explains why Parliament banned it in 1677.
Is Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs a scientific book?
It is a Victorian collection of history, folklore and old medical opinion, not modern science. Its charm lies in the stories, quotations and sources, which show what people believed about desire and why.
Who is Davenport quoting in the book?
He quotes a wide range, including Pliny, Galen, Montaigne, Rabelais, Brillat-Savarin, Burton and Voltaire. Their words give the essays a lively mix of learning, humor and anecdote that makes the topics easy to follow.
