De l'utilité de la flagellation dans la médecine et dans les plaisirs du mariage, et des fonctions des lombes et des reins : ouvrage singulier

Granada in Flammen by Ludwig Huna is a learned treatise written in the late 18th century. It explores the supposed medical and erotic uses of flagellation and surveys its cultural and religious history, while examining the roles of the loins and kidneys in generation. Presented in a scholarly, citation-rich style, it mixes medical reports, classical and ecclesiastical authorities, anecdotes, and moral debate to argue that whipping can act as remedy and stimulant. The opening of this work offers a translator’s warning and a substantial introduction that situates flagellation through Abbé Boileau’s controversial History of the Flagellants, recounting pagan, Jewish, and monastic practices, public processions of medieval flagellants, and scandalous anecdotes from ecclesiastical and courtly life. It defends frank language as necessary for medical clarity, promises extensive notes, and frames the project as a corrective, accessible edition of a rare Latin tract. The main text then begins as a letter to a colleague (Cassius), asserting that experience and authorities show flagellation treating conditions from mania and melancholia to fever, wasting, constipation, and as a provoker of sexual potency; it cites ancient and early-modern physicians alongside literary examples and courtroom cases. Finally, it turns to an anatomical-rational argument: focusing on the back, loins, and kidneys, it amasses scriptural, classical, and medical testimony that these regions govern sexual vigor, using this to explain why blows to the lombar area might excite desire and facilitate generation. (This is an automatically generated summary.)