mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2025-01-15 01:07:20 -05:00
34 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
34 lines
1.5 KiB
Plaintext
From: Bruce.Tindall@launchpad.unc.edu (Bruce Tindall)
|
|
Subject: Spanish Fly
|
|
|
|
[Billionth iteration of very ancient reference to Spanish Fly deleted.]
|
|
|
|
Spanish Fly (pulverized blister-beetles) contains cantharides, which
|
|
can cause physical arousal of a sort, by irritating the urinary tract
|
|
when ingested and excreted. But dig this: it was used in the mid-19th
|
|
century to treat pleurisy. Applied to the skin, it created blisters
|
|
12 by 6 inches in size, which (it was erroneously thought) beneficially
|
|
drew liquid away from the lungs. You want that *inside* your ureter?
|
|
|
|
In Victorian England there were several cases of manslaughter or
|
|
malicious poisoning by means of Spanish Fly. In one, Regina v.
|
|
Hennah, 1877, in which the victim didn't die, the defendant was
|
|
acquitted because no intent to harm was proved.
|
|
|
|
In more recent times, and more legitimately, the active ingredient in
|
|
Spanish Fly was used medicinally to dissolve external warts.
|
|
|
|
Sources: (1) P.V.Taberner, "Aphrodisiacs: the science and the myth"
|
|
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). We don't
|
|
need no stinkin' ISBNumber; look it up in your library catalog or Books
|
|
in Print. (2) Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., source of last resort,
|
|
s.vv. "aphrodisiac" and "blister beetle".
|
|
|
|
Note: the weasely "diode joke" is frowned upon in this newsgroup.
|
|
If you have any questions, Phil Gustafson will be glad to rearrange
|
|
your :-) for you.
|
|
|
|
Bruce "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the direct
|
|
current flows" Tindall
|
|
|