Meibomius,[170] the great advocate for the use of this remedy, remarks, that stripes inflicted upon the back and loins are of great utility in exciting the venereal appetite, because they create warmth in those parts whose office it is to elaborate the semen and to convey it to the generative organs. He, therefore, considered it by no means wonderful that the miserable victims of debauchery and lasciviousness, as well as those whose powers have been exhausted by age or excess, should have recourse to flagellation as a remedy. He observes that its effect is very likely to be that of renewing warmth in the now frigid parts, and of furnishing heat to the semen, an effect in producing which the pain itself materially contributes by the blood and heat which is thereby drawn down to the part until they are communicated to the reproductive organs, the erotic passion being thus raised, even in spite of nature herself, beyond her powers. A similar view is taken by a modern writer, whose opinion is "that the effect of flagellation may be easily referred to the powerful sympathy which exists between the nerves of the lower part of the spinal marrow and other organs. Artificial excitement appears in some degree natural; it is observed in several animals, especially in the feline race. Even snails plunge into each other a bony, prickly spur, that arises from their throats, and which, like the sting of the wasp, frequently breaks off, and is left in the wound."[171] After the appearance of the Abbé Boileau's _Histoire de la Flagellation_, the Jesuits condemned several propositions found either in that work or in others approved by him. The following is one: "Necesse est cum musculi lumbares virgis aut flagellis diverberantur, spiritus vitales revelli, adeoque salaces motus ob vicinam partium genitalium et testium excitari, qui venereis ac illecebris cerebrum mentemque fascinant ac virtutem castitatis ad extremas augustias redigunt." From out of almost innumerable instances of the efficacy of flagellation as an aphrodisiac, the following are selected. Cornelius Gallus, the friend of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, and who, according to Pliny, died the most delightful of deaths by expiring in the embraces of the fondest object of his affections,[172] was solely indebted for the delicious transports he enjoyed with her to the scourge with which her severe father chastised her for the faults that originated in too warm a temperament, a punishment which, instead of counteracting, furthered the wishes of the voluptuous Roman.