A drink in which the leaves of cubeb pepper have been steeped, according to Dr. Jacobus, produces pronounced genital excitation.
The Arabs were astoundingly prolific in producing manuals on erotic themes, ranging over the entire field of sexual practices, normal and perverted, to which man is physiologically bound.
The attitude adopted in such handbooks, however, is free from the contrived prurient or lascivious tone that might possibly have been expected, particularly in relation to occidental erotic literature. There is apparent, on the contrary, a certain reverential humility, as of one who treats a sacred subject for which supreme gratitude is to be accorded to the ultimate and beneficent Maker. In this sense, therefore, erotic matters have inherently a sanctity that is acknowledged by the Arab writers again and again. As in the case of the Sheikh Nefzawi’s The Perfumed Garden. Or in the amorous episodes that pervade the corpus of tales of the Arabian Nights. Or in the Book of Exposition in the Science of Coition, attributed to a certain theologian and historian named Jalal al-Din al-Siyuti. Many Arab erotic treatises actually introduce the subject with a devout invocation to Allah as the creator and dispenser of such beatific and voluptuous pleasures as are detailed in the text.
In one specific instance the Sheikh Nefzawi, after describing a preparation for correcting amatory impairment, adds: This preparation will make the weakness disappear and effect a cure, with the permission of God the Highest.
A Chinese amatory concoction, whose base was opium, was known as affion. Reputedly, it had decided erotic effects: which, however, were of an intensely violent nature accompanied by flagrant brutality. The fact of opium as a major ingredient, however, was evidently an inducement to its use.
Often small creatures, insects, reptiles, formed the base of amatory philtres. In Africa, for example, the amphibious animal that belonged to the lizard species and was named lacerta scincus was anciently ground into powder and taken as a beverage.