and more especially Vatsyayana, who appears to have lived some sixteen hundred years ago, information will be found in Valentino, “L’Hygiene conjugale chez les Hindous,” Archives Generales de Medecine, Ap. 25, 1905; Iwan Bloch, “Indische Medizin,” Puschmann’s Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin, vol. i; Heimann and Stephan, “Beitraege zur Ehehygiene nach der Lehren des Kamasutram,” Zeitschaft fuer Sexualwissenschaft, Sept., 1908; also a review of Richard Schmidt’s German translation of the Kamashastra of Vatsyayana in Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1902, Heft 2.  There has long existed an English translation of this work.  In the lengthy preface to the French translation Lamairesse points out the superiority of Indian erotic art to that of the Latin poets by its loftier spirit, and greater purity and idealism.  It is throughout marked by respect for women, and its spirit is expressed in the well-known proverb:  “Thou shalt not strike a woman even with a flower.”  See also Margaret Noble’s Web of Indian Life, especially Ch.  III, “On the Hindu Woman as Wife,” and Ch.  IV, “Love Strong as Death.”

The advice given to husbands by Guyot (Breviaire de l’Amour Experimental, p. 422) closely conforms to that given, under very different social conditions, by Zacchia and Vatsyayana.  “In a state of sexual need and desire the woman’s lips are firm and vibrant, the breasts are swollen, and the nipples erect.  The intelligent husband cannot be deceived by these signs.  If they do not exist, it is his part to provoke them by his kisses and caresses, and if, in spite of his tender and delicate excitations, the lips show no heat and the breasts no swelling, and especially if the nipples are disagreeably irritated by slight suction, he must arrest his transports and abstain from all contact with the organs of generation, for he would certainly find them in a state of exhaustion and disposed to repulsion.  If, on the contrary, the accessory organs are animated, or become animated beneath his caresses, he must extend them to the generative organs, and especially to the clitoris, which beneath his touch will become full of appetite and ardor.”

The importance of the preliminary titillation of the sexual organs has been emphasized by a long succession alike of erotic writers and physicians, from Ovid (Ars Amatoria end of Bk.  II) onwards.  Eulenburg (Die Sexuale Neuropathie, p. 79) considers that titillation is sometimes necessary, and Adler, likewise insisting on the preliminaries of psychic and physical courtship (Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, p. 188), observes that the man who is gifted with insight and skill in these matters possesses a charm which will draw sparks of sensibility from the coldest feminine heart.  The advice of the physician is at one in this matter with the maxims of the erotic artist and with the needs of the loving woman.  In making love there must be no haste, wrote Ovid:—­

“Crede mihi, non est Veneris properanda voluptas,
Sed sensim tarda prolicienda mora.”