In the ancient Orient and even in much later ages, the phallus was an object of veneration not in a prurient or lustful sense, but as the source of procreation, the emblem of maternity. For sterility was the major, the primary curse. Hence any means might be exercised to counteract this catastrophic condition, this mark of divine disfavor, this racial blight. Hence too among certain ethnic communities as well as in Biblical literature the stranger, or the occasional traveler, or the concubine, was offered conjugal status, for the sole purpose of effecting generation. Horror of sterility drove women to ceaseless supplications, to priapic invocations, to priapic contacts, to secret devices, and to magic aid. In the East, there was the belief that to walk over certain stones was a remedy for such sterility. In Madagascar a stone was held in reverence as promoting both agricultural and human fertility. In obscure regions of the Pyrenees Mountains, as well as in France, similar stones were believed conducive to amatory excitation and also to fertility. And these stones were merely worn and weather-beaten vestiges of the original phallic shapes or other analogous forms. In India, too, the lingam and the yoni were pervasively revered throughout the continent. There were temples lined with hundreds of lingams, garlanded with flowers, anointed with ghee in continuous adoration. * * * * * A mixture of rose water, powdered almonds, and sugar is an old Arab drink that was commonly considered to correct incapacity. So too with a mixture, cooked together, of cloves, ginger, nuts, wild lavender, and nutmeg. * * * * * The Koran contains prescriptions that govern the daily life, material and spiritual, of Moslems. For amatory purposes, which in themselves imply a sacred function, certain perfumes are recommended as stimulants. Musk is most frequently mentioned and used. Also camphor, essence of rose, olibanum, and cascarilla. * * * * * The erotic theme in general is always associated, in Arab texts, with reverence and sanctity, never with prurience. The Arab erotologist Omar Haleby asserts that the Prophet himself advised recourse to invocations in the case of physiological incapacity. The erotic consummation, repeats Omar Haleby, must be considered as an act inspired by the divinity. It is the why and the wherefore of the entire cosmos, the divine law of the conservation of the human species. * * * * *