The egg plant, too, split and boiled with a flour paste, vanilla beans, pimentos, chives, and pepper-corns, and a concoction known as bois bandé or tightening wood, containing strychnine and hence highly dangerous, was commonly in use in the West Indies, where it was credited with excitant qualities. In China, again, bamboo shoots, usually an appetizing culinary ingredient, are believed to have an aphrodisiac value. A shrub that, since Roman times, was used for inciting desire was birthwort. In this respect it was quite familiar to the Middle Ages. Bitter sweet, too, like many herbs, was at one time credited with erotic virtues. The berry of the caper plant, that is, caperberry, belongs in the same category. Its potency was reputedly so great that the plant is equated, in Ecclesiastes, with erotic desire itself. Paprika, which is Hungarian red pepper, is prepared from the plant capsicum annuum, and is both a spice and a traditionally credited amatory aid. A plant similar to the artichoke, and equally prickly, is cardoon, considered a stimulating agent. In France, the fleshy parts of the inner leaves are consumed with this intent. Caraway seeds, in the East, are valued erotically. Stewed in milk sauce, carrots are endowed, in Oriental manuals, with stimulating characteristics. In ancient Greece the carrot, used as a venereal medicine, was called a philtron. Rosemary, the aromatic shrub, has leaves that are used in perfumery, medicinally, and in cookery. Among the Romans, it has an amatory virtue. * * * * * Some amatory doses are of such a nature that excess may prove fatal. An urgent young man, invited to a dinner prepared by a courtesan, ate too heartily. He died on the following day, as all the dishes had been spiced with a potent stimulus. Ferdinand of Castile, too, died from an administration of the same drug that had spiced the courses at the banquet. * * * * * A medieval powder that was an energizing potential, rejuvenating and refreshing, is described by the English dramatist Ben Jonson (c. 1573–1637) in his comedy Volpone. Volpone himself offers the beautifying powder thus: