* * * * * The brains of certain animals were at various periods considered, apart from their food value, to possess erotic effects. So with the brains of sheep, pig, and calf. In some countries, notably in the Mediterranean area, animal brains are prepared as a gastronomic delicacy. * * * * * At one time the milk of a chameleon was treated as a generative excitation. The thirteenth century Arab physician and philosopher Avicenna so recommended it. * * * * * Rhubarb and cinnamon, ginger and vanilla, mixed in wine, produce a recipe that was prevalent in Italy, So with curaçao, mixed with madeira wine: to which were added pieces of sugar. * * * * * An old collection of unique recipes, entitled the Golden Cabinet of Secrets, was formerly but incorrectly included among the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. The collection itself was long popular for its putative authority. An amatory powder, described in the Cabinet, is compounded thus: Flowers of seeds of elecampane, vervain, mistletoe berries are crushed together and dried thoroughly in an oven. The powder is taken in a glass of wine, and the effects, it was urged, would be most gratifying. * * * * * Usually, amatory concoctions were prepared individually, for each suppliant. In the seventeenth century, however, an Englishman by the name of Burton, an apothecary, established a factory in the town of Colchester. Here he produced on a large scale aphrodisiacs compounded of the roots of sea holly. * * * * * There were for sale, in Rome, in the market place, in booths and emporia, and in quarters where people of all ranks and all ethnic origins congregated, philtres and brews, and articles putatively endowed with provocative and generative properties. Dried human marrow, and the sucking-fish, star-fish and intimate genital secretions, both male and female, were used in these concoctions. And over the preparations arose supplications and invocations and incantations directed to the divinities of the underworld, entreating efficacy in the purchased potions. * * * * * Among plants that have both culinary uses and at least presumed amatory implications are the artichoke and asparagus. In France, artichokes were sold by vendors who, in their street cries, added forthrightly that artichokes aroused the genital areas. Similarly, in the Orient, asparagus, fried with egg yolks, and sprinkled with spices, constituted a decidedly amatory dish.