ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602020057
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Friday Something
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER
With Valentine's Day just a heartbeat away, it might be time to think about putting a little more oomph into your love life.
You could try a dose of bear gallbladder, powder from a rhino's horn or ground heelbones from the Austrian Alpine ibex.
These supposed aphrodisiacs could replace chocolate as a way to sweeten the odds of getting up close and personal with the apple of your eye.
Of course, at $10,000 for the bear part and $20,000 for the rhino bits, a $30 box of Godiva chocolates looks like a real bargain - and it's much easier to come by.
Chocolate did seem to do the trick for Mexican emperor Montezuma, who drank 50 cups a day before visiting his harem of 600 women.
The great lover Casanova preferred oysters. Napoleon ate truffles. The Maharajah of Bikaner ingested crushed diamonds (not for those on a limited budget) and Pliny the Elder recommended hippopotamus snout.
Wrestler Hulk Hogan and other bodybuilders get fired up over Hot Stuff, a powder made from yohimbe, the bark of an African tree. But beware too much of a good thing. High doses in humans can be lethal.
In Elizabethan times, prunes were so highly regarded as aphrodisiacs that they were served free in brothels. Now, they're associated with stimulation of another kind.
In 1889, a daring (and perhaps love-starved) French physiologist, Charles Brown-Sequard, injected himself with a mixture of dog and guinea pig testicles and saline, purely in the interest of science.
He was happy - very happy- to report ``a remarkable return of my physical endurance.'' His euphoria was short-lived. A month later, he died.
Life is short. Play hard.
- Source: The Old Farmer's 1996 Almanac
LENGTH: Short : 41 linesby CNB