b). Onanism (Self Masturbation),—a view _Sprengel_[297] is inclined to decide in favour of.
a). _Haemorrhoids_ (Piles); an opinion maintained by _Paul Thomas de Girac_[298], _Valckenaar_ in his Notes to Herodotus, _Bayer_[299], and the authors of the “General History of the World”[300];
b). _actual Menstruation_, for which _le Fèvre_ and _Dacier_ would seem to have declared;
c). _Gonorrhoea_ (Clap), which _Patin_[301], _Hensler_[302] and _Degen_[303] understood to be meant;
d). _actual loss of the Testicles, true Eunuchs_, _Mercurialis_[304] considered must have been implied; and with this view _Stark’s_ conclusion in part coincides, who understood a disease involving complete loss of virile power, both corporeal and mental, and producing an actual metamorphosis of the male type into the female.
(3). _a mental Disease_, in fact a form of Melancholia. This is the view adopted by _Sauvages_[305], _Heyne_, _Bose_, _Koray_[306] and _Friedreich_.
It would naturally be our task to examine the reasons alleged for and against these separate views. Supposing however we succeed in satisfactorily proving one of them to be the right one, then _ipso facto_ all the rest come to nothing; and so we propose here to essay the advocacy of the oldest of them,—the view that makes the νοῦσος θήλεια to be the vice of paederastia. _En passant_ we must call attention to the fact that under the name of paederastia must be understood not only the vicious habit of the paederast pure and simple, of the man that is who _practices_ the act, but also of the _pathic_, who offers opportunities for its commission. This is a point which above all others has been quite left out of sight by the adversaries of the view in question.
The next question we have to answer would seem to be this: Could paederastia be regarded as a consequence of the vengeance of Venus? As it is the Scythians that are in question, the first thing would naturally appear to be to determine what conception the Scythians had of Venus. But inasmuch as the data are lacking for any demonstration of the sort, while the Scythians themselves ascribe the νοῦσος θήλεια to the vengeance of Venus, we may very well refer for a reply to this first question to the general character of the cult of the goddess[307] and what has been said on the whole subject above; and herein there seems to exist no reason why we should not answer the query asked above in the affirmative. Granted that Venus was regarded as goddess of fruitfulness or as dispenser of the joys of Love, then in either aspect it was but natural she should withdraw the marks of her favour from the culprits (the paederasts). These neither wished for posterity nor enjoyed the delights connected with _natural_ coition, but were equally indifferent towards the one and towards the other[308]; and the first sign of the vengeance of the goddess consists in the withdrawal of her benefits.