Repeated intoxication, and vicious indulgences, may so debilitate the constitution in general, and the organs of generation in particular, as to render the debauchee wholly incapable of venereal congress; such impotence however is not to be regarded as permanent; bark, steel, the cold-bath, and above all, a change of habits may restore the patient to the full possession of his powers. There is a peculiar species arising from debility which deserves some notice in this place; it depends upon a want of consent between the immediate and secondary organs of generation; thus the penis acts without the testicles, and becomes erected when there is no semen to be evacuated; while the testicles secrete too quickly, and an evacuation takes place without any erection of the penis. Under the consideration of constitutional causes, we must not omit to enumerate the occurrence of Epilepsy: there can be little doubt, but that in certain cases, the venereal orgasm has excited an attack of this disease, and prevented the consummation of the act; we are therefore bound to recognise it as an occasional cause of impotence, and Dr. _Cullen_ has accordingly considered it as forming a distinct species, under the title of DYSPERMATISMUS _Epilepticus_. The operation of certain powerful narcotics may be likewise regarded as capable of producing impotence, and cases are recorded where impotence, so occasioned, has become permanent;[324] much credulity, however, has existed upon this subject; the anaphrodisiac powers of Camphor were long believed, and is one of the vulgar errors noticed by Sir Thomas _Brown_;[325] and Amurath the IVth published an edict which made smoking tobacco a capital offence: a measure which was founded on an opinion that it rendered the people infertile;[326] equally gratuitous are the different opinions which have been advanced respecting the aphrodisiac virtues of particular substances; one of which, from the extent to which it is believed, and the authority by which it is countenanced, deserves to be noticed on this occasion; we allude to the popular notion that a fish diet contributes to increase fecundity; and we are not a little surprised to see it sanctioned by such a writer as _Montesquieu_, who observes, that “the regimen of certain monks seems to be wholly repugnant to the intention of their founders.” The same belief is very generally entertained in fishing towns, in consequence of the great population of such places, but surely the fact admits of easy explanation upon that general principle in political economy, which no one will attempt to deny, that the number of marriages will be in proportion to the facility with which children can be supported. A blow on the head may also deprive a man of his virility; a case of this kind is related by _Hennen_, in his Military Surgery, where a soldier became so affected in consequence of a fracture of the occipital bone, by the fragment of a shell.