"_Secondly_. The fervency of lust is abated by certain drugs, plants herbs and roots, which make the taker cold, maleficiated, unfit for, and unable to perform the act of generation; as hath often been experimented by the water-lily, Heraclea, Agnus-Castus, willow-twigs, hemp-stalks, woodbine, honeysuckle, tamarisk, chastetree, mandrake, bennet keebugloss, the skin of a hippopotamus, and many other such, which, by convenient doses proportioned to the peccant humour and constitution of the patient, being duly and seasonably received within the body--what by their elementary virtues on the one side, and peculiar properties on the other, do either benumb, mortify and beclumpse with cold, the prolific semence, or scatter and disperse the spirits which ought to have gone along with, and conducted the sperm to the places destined and appointed for its reception,--or lastly, shut up, stop and obstruct the way, passages, and conduits, through which the seed should have expelled, evacuated, and ejected. We have, nevertheless, of those ingredients, which, being of a contrary operation, heat the blood, bind the nerves, unite the spirits, quicken the senses, strengthen the muscles, and thereby rouse up, provoke, excite and enable a man to the vigorous accomplishment of the feat of amorous dalliance. I have no need of those, quoth Panurge, God be thanked and you, my good master. Howsoever, I pray you, take no exception or offence at these my words; for what I have said was not out of any ill-will I did hear to you, the Lord, he knows.