A more difficult procedure, but one commended by the seventeenth century Sir Thomas Browne, was self-restraint in the ‘flaming days,’ as he calls them. Otherwise, there remains one other remedy, that was adopted by Origen, the third century A.D. Father of the Church. He cut the Gordian knot, freeing himself from all carnal inducements: Seeds genitalibus membris, eunuchum se facit. Ingenious inventions, activities, devices for escaping from or suppressing compulsive amatory inclinations have been proposed in every age, from the arch poet of love Ovid himself to the knowledgeable Dr. Nicolas Venette. Shun idleness, for idleness tends to amatory thoughts, warns the erotological poet. Be active, and you will not be endangered. Occupy yourself constantly: with agricultural pursuits, or fishing, or hunting. Or even take up the study of law. Avoid food that tends to stimulate: and, in general, live an ascetic life removed from crowds, from visual provocations, from social parties and clamorous public spectacles and dramatic performances, from pictorial or sculptural objects that induce amatory images. Snuff taking is suggested, as well as concentrated mental study, in later centuries. Or drink a concoction of the roots and seeds of the water lily. That is soothing and cooling, as the Turks seemed to have found it. * * * * * Aromatic herbs were, in ancient Rome, usually a preliminary to more active amatory adventures. The osphresiological sensitivity of men and women is such that in many cases particular aromas, strong unguents and cosmetics, arouse venereal impulses. In perverted and aberrational situations, in fact, even repellent but powerful effluvia and vapors, corporeal and genital, may create or induce erotic susceptibility. The Oriental manuals of erotology and certain anthropological studies confirm this view. A strange personality who was himself European in origin but merged with the East was the writer Lafcadio Hearn. In the course of his essays, translations, and interpretations he produced a brief thesis on feminine osphresiological influence. The Roman novelist Apuleius, who belongs in the second century A.D., was accused of marrying a wealthy widow named Pudentilla, by magic rites. He thus answered his accuser: He said that I was the only one found capable of defiling her widowhood, as if it were virginity, by my incantations and love philtres. * * * * *