Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction

In 1869, a curious Victorian scholar set out to document what ancient civilizations knew about the body's most primal powers, and what his contemporaries had chosen to forget. John Davenport's three essays trace the arc from the sacred to the taboo: how fertility once commanded temples and public rituals, how certain foods, herbs, and practices earned reputations as enhancers or suppressors of desire, and how the boundary between "lewd" and "holy" shifted across centuries and cultures. Drawing on classical sources, anthropological observation, and period medical literature, he reconstructs a world where reproduction was openly celebrated, its symbols carved into public monuments and woven into religious worship. The book reveals as much about Victorian anxieties as about ancient beliefs, a scholar nervously peering into traditions his era had deemed too vulgar to discuss, while half-apologizing for the investigation itself. For modern readers, it serves as a fascinating artifact: a window into how the Victorians understood (and misunderstood) their sexual past, and how that understanding shaped their own repressive present.