More definitely aphrodisiacal effects are produced by drugs, and
especially by drugs which in large doses are poisons. The
aphrodisiac with the widest popular reputation is cantharides,
but its sexually exciting effects are merely an accidental result
of its action in causing inflammation of the genito-urinary
passage, and it is both an uncertain and a dangerous result,
except in skillful hands and when administered in small doses.
Nux vomica (with its alkaloid strychnia), by virtue of its
special action on the spinal cord, has a notably pronounced
effect in heightening the irritability of the spinal ejaculatory
center, though it by no means necessarily exerts any
strengthening influence. Alcohol exerts a sexually exciting
effect, but in a different manner; it produces little stimulation
of the cord and, indeed, even paralyzes the lumbar sexual center
in large doses, but it has an influence on the peripheral
nerve-endings and on the skin, and also on the cerebral centers,
tending to arouse desire and to diminish inhibition. In this
latter way, as Adler remarks, it may, in small doses, under some
circumstances, be beneficial in men with an excessive
nervousness or dread of coitus, and women, in whom orgasm has
been difficult to reach, have frequently found this facilitated
by some previous indulgence in alcohol.
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