Note 29 — ALA AL-DIN ABU AL-SHAMAT.”[24]

Arab. “Sikankúr” (Gr. Σκίγκος, Lat. Scincus) a lizard (S. officinalis) which, held in the hand, still acts as an aphrodisiac in the East, and which in the Middle Ages was considered a universal medicine. In the “Adja’ib al-Hind” (Les Merveilles de l’Inde) we find a notice of a bald-headed old man who was compelled to know his wife twice a day and twice a night in consequence of having eaten a certain fish. (Chapt. lxxviii. of the translation by M. L. Marcel Devic, from a manuscript of the tenth century; Paris, Lemaire, 1878). Europeans deride these prescriptions, but Easterns know better: they affect the fancy, that is, the brain; and often succeed in temporarily relieving impotence. The recipes for this evil, which is incurable only when it comes from heart-affections, are innumerable in the East; and about half of every medical work is devoted to them. Many a quack has made his fortune with a few bottles of tincture of cantharides, and a man who could discover a specific would become a millionaire in India only. The curious reader will consult for specimens the Ananga-Ranga Shastra by Koka Pandit; or the “Rujú ‘al-Shaykh ila ‘l-Sabáh fi Kuwwati ‘l-Báh” (the Return of the Old Man to Youth in power of Procreation) by Ahmad bin Sulaymán known as Ibn Kamál Báshá in 139 chapters lithographed at Cairo. Of these aphrodisiacs I shall have more to say.