A certain plant named Pellitory of Spain, and, in Latin terminology, Anacyclus Pyrethrum, has a traditionally credited amatory quality. The plant is so considered in Arab erotological literature.
The Orient, knowledgeable in the virtues and characteristics of numberless extracts and distillations, unguents and lotions, considered ambergris, as a perfume, to be endowed with restorative, life-preserving properties. Anciently, among the Persians, there was a tonic composed of precious stones—pearls, and rubies, and gold, and powdered ambergris, producing a pastille that was eaten with anticipatory amatory prospects.
In modern times, too, in the East, coffee is often drunk in which a touch of ambergris has been intruded.
Very anciently, ambergris had reputedly amazing qualities, that would produce, temporarily, a state of rejuvenescence in aged suppliants.
Almonds belong to the Orient. Their fragrance is entwined in Oriental poetry, in Oriental legend, and in Oriental modes of living. It is therefore not surprising that the almond, variously prepared, whether powdered, or reduced to an oil, is associated with invigorating tonics. The Perfumed Garden, the erotic handbook written by the Arab erotologist the Sheikh Nefzawi, describes a number of preparations in which the base is almond.
He recommends the eating of some twenty almonds, with a glassful of honey, and one hundred pine-tree grains, just before retiring to bed. As an alternate, there is chicken broth, with cream, yolk of eggs, and powdered almonds.
In Eastern Asia there has always been, for untold ages, an awareness of the stimulating effects of certain foods. So, among the Annamites, the chief food was fish, which, according to certain anthropological studies and investigations, gives an appreciably lascivious tendency to this people.