From Foods That Make You Fart to Bull Urine Ointment, How the Ancients Dealt With Man’s Struggle to Get It Up
Viagra burst onto the market and into pop culture in 1998. The little blue pill’s approval by the FDA seemed to usher in a new era of unfailing sexual performance. Now men of every age would be able to have (and maintain) erections at will. The drug is designed to treat erectile dysfunction, but everything from Sex and the City to Pfizer’s own marketing campaign suggests that it has a second-life as an aphrodisiac that enhances sexual pleasure. It might seem that between the contraceptive pill and Viagra we live in a new epoch, but a new study of ancient medicine reveals that we are the hardly the first to use drugs to manipulate sexual pleasure.
In an article on “Erectogenic Drugs in Greek Medicine” published this month in Pharmacy and History, University of Cincinnati doctoral student in Classicis Brent Arendt dug through some neglected ancient medical literature that describes the remedies designed to secure an erection.
A whole host of ancient writers, it seems, describe cures for impotency (alongside cures for venereal diseases). The second century doctor Galen writes that “to make the penis erect” one should “anoint [it] with honey before sex” or “put arugula seed in honey and drink [it].” Galen isn’t alone; one of the ancient Greek magical papyri straightforwardly recommends a concoction of ground pepper and honey as a topical ointment for the underperforming member.