Some physicians place great confidence in the medicines called refrigerants. The most favourite of these are infusions from the leaves or flowers of the white water-lily (_nymphea alba_), sorrel, lettuce, perhaps also from mallows, violets, and endive (cichorium), oily seeds, and waters distilled from lettuce, water lily, cucumbers, purslain, and endives. In equal esteem are the syrups of orgeat, lemons, and vinegar, to which may be added cherry-laurel water, when given in proper and gradually-increasing doses. Hemlock, camphor, and agnus-castus, have likewise been much recommended as moderators of the sexual appetite. According to Pliny,[194] the nymphea alba was considered so powerful that these who take it for twelve days successively will then find themselves incapable of propagating their species, and if it be used for forty days, the amorous propensity will be entirely extinguished. With respect to hemlock, it is too dangerous a medicine to repose confidence in. The ancients had a high opinion of camphor, a reputation which this drug preserved until, comparatively, a late period, for Scaliger informs that, in the 17th century, monks were compelled to smell and masticate it for the purpose of extinguishing concupiscence; and it was a favourite maxim of the medical school of Salernum[195] that-- "Camphora per nares castrat odore mares." Camphor if smell'd A man will geld. This fatal property, however, has been denied by modern medical authorities, and apparently with reason, if the fact be true that such workmen as are employed in extracting this useful vegetable product, and who may be said to live constantly in a highly camphorated atmosphere, do not find themselves in the leash degree incapacitated for gratifying the calls of _l'amour physique_. There is no doubt, on the other hand, that camphor has been successfully employed in cases of nymphomania, and that several medical writers have asserted its efficacy in neutralising the properties of cantharides, adducing instances which would appear to prove its sedative power: the following one is related by Groenvelt:--[196]