Dioscrides being handed a mandrake uprooted by a dog, which dies in the process.
Some aphrodisiacs have been popular since the days of antiquity. The mandrake plant is
mentioned in the Old
Testament and is still in use today. Mandrake (or madragora, mandragora officinarum) is a
member of the potato
family with a large dark-brown root and small red fruit. It contains the alkaloids atropine and
scopolomine: in
mild doses these are soporifics in larger doses they can kill! In antiquity there were magical
rules for harvesting
the plant. Pliny noted that the plant roots were in the form of human genitals - which explains,
through the idea
of sympathetic magic, the supposed aphrodisiac effect. Cantharides, another ancient
aphrodisiac, was first
mentioned by Aristotle: its active principle, cantharidin, is extracted from the dried and
powdered bodies of the
blister beetle, a brown or bluish creature found in southern Europe. Yet another old alleged
aphrodisiac is
ginseng, the "mystic plant of the Orient", made into tablets by modern sex aid retailers and
also into a wine. In
the Far East today ginseng wine is termed kaoling (as strong as vodka), with the roots of
ginseng soaked in the
cask for at least three years. Users are recommended to take a small glass before going to bed.