From History of Flagellation Among Different Nations. New York: Medical Publishing Co., 1930: pp. 3-6.
A period will, sooner or later, arrive, at which the disciplining and flagellating practices even now in use, and which have been so for so many centuries, will have been laid aside, and succeeded by others equally whimsical. And while the men of those days will overlook the defects of their own extravagant customs, or perhaps even admire the rationality of them, they will refuse to believe that the practices of which accounts are given in this work, ever were in use among mankind, and even matter of great moment among them. The design, therefore, is effectually to remove all doubts in that respect, by handing down to them the flower and choice parts of the facts and arguments on the subject.
This book will likewise be extremely useful to the present age; and it will in the first place be so, the subject being considered in a moral light. The numerous cases that are produced in this book, of disciplines which offenders of all classes, kings as well as others, have zealously inflicted upon themselves, will supply a striking proof of that deep sense of justice which exists in the breasts of all men; and the reader iv will from such facts conclude, no doubt with pleasure, that even the offenders of the high rank we have just mentioned, notwithstanding the state by which they were surrounded, and the majestic countenance which they put on, sometimes in proportion as they more clearly know that they are wrong, are inwardly convinced that they owe compensation for their acts of injustice.
If considered in a philosophical light, this work will be useful to the present age, in the same manner as we have said it would be to posterity. The present generation will find in it proofs, both of the reality of the singular practices which once prevailed in various countries, and are still in full force in many others, and of the important light in which they have been considered by mankind. They will meet with accounts of bishops, cardinals, popes and princes, who have warmly commended such practices; and will not be displeased to be moreover acquainted with the debates of the learned on the same subject, and with the honest, though opposite, endeavours of a Cerebrosus and a Damian, a Gretzer and a Gerson.
We may add that the principal part of the facts and anecdotes are taken from the very rare work of the Abbe Boileau.
The present brief treatise is a reprint of a book published some years ago. It contains an accurate and full account of the various modes of inflicting punishment with the rod or flagellum, and descriptions of the implements used; and quotes many remarkable cases of flogging. The work is anonymous both as to author and publisher. According to the unknown author’s preface the facts are taken from “Historia Flagellantium,” by the Abbe Jacobus Boileau (John de Lolme) who was born in Paris in 1635 and died in 1716. The author’s purpose, is as he states in his Preface, to prove that the practices he describes were not only in vogue in ancient days, but that they were customs of his own time. Neither were they confined to classes or individuals, all sorts and conditions of men were victims of the deplorable habit. Kings, slaves, and military men were disciples of the rod, as was also the religious zealot who submitted the bodily organs which the Phallic worshipers venerate to the flagellant’s rod. By an intelligent handling of the subject the writer endeavors to suppress a virile custom that exists (even to-day) among religious orders. For the same moral motives the Publisher issues the book.