re 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, fr