In Italy early in the fifteenth century, a woman named Giovanna become ill. A “handsome, little-knowing and untaught physician {scitulus et indoctus medicus}” came to treat her. Making a pretense of an ancient medical diagnostic procedure, the physician asked for a specimen of her urine. Giovanna’s young, unmarried daughter gave him a specimen of her own urine. The physician immediately prescribed sexual intercourse.While the doctor may have been untaught, he had good physical instinct. Many young, unmarried women today self-prescribe sexual intercourse. Self-prescribing medicine is dangerous. Doing that can lead to terrible addictions and other health problems. But the situation with respect to married women is rather different. Married women commonly fail to realize the health benefits of having sex with their husbands.
Like most husbands, Giovanna’s husband cared deeply for her welfare. He took up the work of filling the doctor’s prescription:
When the husband rose for that prescription, he first arranged to take a lavish meal into his stomach, and then starting having sex with his wife. She in her debilitated condition found this irksome, being ignorant of what the physician’s advice was. She cried out frequently from the novelty of the experience, “What are you doing, my husband? You’re killing me.”
