Tracing Narratives of Decay in 19th-Century French Colonial Medicine: Aphrodisiacs, Masculinities and Colonial Algeria

During the colonial period, French doctors viewed aphrodisiacs as connected to the French colony of Algeria in two distinct ways: on one hand, they repeated anecdotal evidence of desperate Muslim men contacting French doctors asking for (European) aphrodisiacs, while, on the other hand, they described aphrodisiacs present in France as frequently coming from ‘the Orient’. Aphrodisiacs must thus at once be located within French narratives of Algerian Muslim men being both oversexed and prematurely impotent and within the global trade of exotic, heat-creating substances that could potentially help European men with issues of impotence. While knowledge about the use of aphrodisiacs among Algerians might therefore have been used by certain desperate French men, it was also used as a justification of colonialism. This article introduces readers to 19th-century medical theories on the constructions of Algerian and French masculinities, against the background of natalist fears in France, in the specific context of the demand for and trade in aphrodisiacs.