LACLOS, PIERRE AMBROISE FRANÇOIS CHODERLOS DE (1741-
1803). A French army officer. He was the author of an epistolary novel
entitled Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which was first published in 1782. The
protagonist of the novel recounts the various immoral ways he has used to
seduce young girls. Laclos hoped to educate by illustrating the villainy of
the professional seducer. He had considerable psychological insight and
underlined the fact that to seduce and corrupt an honest young woman, she
first must be made to lose respect for her mother and hence for herself.

Bibliography: Versini L. 1968. Laclos et la tradition.

LACORDAIRE, JEAN BAPTISTE HENRI (1802-1861). A French the-
ologian and Dominican preacher. His 'Conférences' at Notre Dame in Paris
made him famous. At a time when the church was dubious of magnetism
(q.v.), he asserted his belief in it in a sermon delivered in 1846. He stated
that magnetism consisted of "natural but irregular forces" used by God to
oppose the materialism of the times.

Bibliography: Sheppard L. 1964. Lacordaire.

LACTANTIUS, LUCIUS CAELIUS FIRMIANUS (c.240-c.320). A
Christian writer, brought up in Africa. He was tutor to the son of Con-
stantine the Great ( 288?-337). In his Divinarum Institutionum Libri Septem
he described the ways in which demons affect the viscera and, through them,
the human mind. He also reported the belief that anger was linked with the
gallbladder, fear with the heart (q.v.), joy with the spleen (q.v.), and sexual
pleasure with the liver (q.v.).

Bibliography: Chadwick H. 1967. The early church.

LACTATION. For centuries suppression of lactation after childbirth was
considered a cause of insanity in women. As late as the nineteenth century,
it was believed that the suppressed milk found its way to the brain. As

-522-