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Damiana - Love potion of the Aztecs. One shot and this 'Old Gringo' was in trouble... Article by David Mandich - December 17, 2003 If I were an ancient Aztec juiced up on Damiana, I could go happily to the altar to have my heart ripped out. Or better yet, Mambo the night away wearing nothing but feathers at the village fertility orgy. The Damiana plant is a small shrub with smooth, green oval leaves and little aromatic yellow flowers that grows in many parts of Mexico, Central America and most abundantly in Baja California del Sur. For over a century is has been gathered by locals from Todos Santos to La Paz where it has been bundled, bagged and shipped throughout the world for use as an herbal tea, medicine or distilled into a magical liquor. Its use, dates back to the time of the ancients. True confession: Once upon a time (between marriages) this old Gringo hitched a ride with two twenty-something year old La Paz senoritas to visit Todos Santos (fifty miles west on the Pacific side of Baja). After a day of visiting the galleries, and enjoying a beautiful sunset at the beach, we stopped at a little roadside stand, which offered locally made candies, beer, soft drinks, beer, snacks, more beer, and something unknown to me, a local liquor called Damiana. It came in a recycled green half liter bottle, crudely corked, with a burlap cloth cover on its bottleneck and a brown wrapping paper label. Baja class. The counter boy who, incidentally was deaf, offered me a sample. I would soon find out his handicap didn't slow him down a bit. For he noted right away I had my hands full with two 'Chikititas' over twenty years my junior. And he was going to help me out with my problema. He entertained the three of us with gestures and sexual motions indicating the aphrodisiacal potential of Damiana all the while whistling what sounded like bird calls. My young lady companions were quite amused by it all. I was not. Something was happening here. After downing a couple of shots (the ladies demurred), one Senorita handed me a note the lad had written in Spanish asking for her telephone number. "What was the poor mute going to do..." I flustered, "Call you up and make bird calls over the phone?" Time to hit the road I thought, darkness was coming. High time for the range cattle to play 'Cow Tag'' or 'Hide and Seek' with the cars on the highway. It was soon after we had passed the nights first victims - three burros and a Trans Am, all smashed up and looking very dead by the roadside, that I started feeling the effects of the Damiana. First my temperature started to rise. I started to sweat a little, then (seated in the middle) I moved my right arm around the shoulders of the senorita on my right. "So far, so good" thought I... Then I moved my left arm up and around the shoulders of the senorita driving. She didn't resist...Good sign I thought. I proceeded to massage the necks of both of them at the same time... (What was I thinking? I honestly don't know) Then all of a sudden they screamed, both having simultaneously an 'Aha!' experience upon discovering my game. "It's the Damiana...Not me!' I howled, embarrassed and fearing they must have thought I was some kind of latent polygamist from Utah. Then they teased me about how everyone in Mexico (except Gringos) knows that Damiana stimulates ones sexual appetite. Used as an herbal tea or medicine, Damiana is also reputed to cure or relieve symptoms of anxiety, depression, asthma, poor circulation, cold/flu, fatigue and sexual frigidity. (Is this where I fit in?) Well, the Aztecs determined that high doses would induce euphoria and loss of balance (Keeps 'em in line during the Aztec god Chacmool's heart removal fiestas). American doctors in 1919 noted that during the frontier days, "Women of loose morals and midwives" used it as a remedy. Nowadays, one finds it as a basis for many herbal alternatives to Viagra, as well as a wonderful drinking liquor, and a delicious tea. Damiana served as tea or as a liquor, exhibits a fresh botanical desert fragrance, unique and truly reflective of Baja. More succinctly put, it tastes and smells like the desert and you can get drunk and horny on it. It's truly a treasure of Mexico, like Tequila, great beer, beautiful beaches and forgiving senoritas. Article by David Mandich - December 17, 2003
King's American Dispensatory. by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. D., 1898. The leaves and top of Turnera aphrodisiaca, Ward and Vasey (Turnera diffusa, Willdenow, var. aphrodisiaca, Urban). Nat. Ord. - Turneraceae. COMMON NAME: Damiana. Botanical Source, History, and Description. - This drug was introduced, in 1874, by Dr. F. O. St. Clair, and first appeared in the form of fluid extract, from the firm of Messrs. Helmick & Co., of Washington, D. C. Three distinct varieties or species of plants under the name of Damiana, are occasionally found upon the market, and are derived from as many different sources. In connection with the history of this drug, it may be stated that Mr. H. S. Wellcome read a paper upon the subject before the New York Alumni Association of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, October 15, 1875, at the same time exhibiting cuts of leaves, which were known upon the market, at that time, as "Damiana," reproduced by us. The true Damiana, the kind originally introduced by Dr. F. O. St. Clair, who obtained it from Mr. Eugene Gillespie, the United States Consul at Cape San Lucas (Cabo San Lucas), is derived from Mexico. It is evidently from a Mexican species of Turnera, supposed, by E. M. Holmes, to be a smooth-leaved variety of T. microphylla, De Candolle. Prof. Lester F. Ward, on the examination of authentic specimens obtained by Dr. St. Clair, concluded that the drug is obtained from an undescribed species of Turnera, which Prof. Vasey and himself designate Turnera aphrodisiaca, and this name we shall accept for the Mexican damiana, until further light is thrown upon the subject. The result of Prof. Ward's examination can be found in the Virginia Med. Monthly, April, 1876. We extend our thanks to Dr. St. Clair for the aid given us in our endeavor to obtain the complete history of this drug, as well as for the specimens of original damiana so kindly furnished by himself. The genus Turnera is a small family of chiefly tropical American plants allied to the Passifloreae. The flowers are small, yellow, and, in the species that produces damiana, subsessile near the end of the short branches. The calyx is tubular, hairy externally, colored like the petals, and 5-toothed at the apex. The petals are 5, yellow, and inserted on the tube of the calyx. The fruit, specimens of which are often found with damiana leaves, are dry, 1-celled, globular, and about the size of a large hemp seed. They are warty and rough externally, open by 3 valves, and contain from 3 to 6 kidney-shaped seeds, attached to 3 parietal placentae. Mexican damiana (Turnera aphrodisiaca), as found in market, consists of broken leaves mixed with fragments of the branches, and, sometimes, with seedpods. The branches have a reddish-brown bark, and are covered, when young, with white, cottony hairs. The leaves are less than an inch long, obovate, wedge-shape, and taper at the base to a short, slender leafstalk., when young, they are covered with a slight pubescence, but become smooth when old. They are distinctly pinnately veined, and the margin is toothed with from 8 to 10 teeth. A variety of damiana, closely resembling the preceding, is derived from California. It was ascertained by Mr. E. M. Holmes to be obtained from Turnera microphylla, De Candolle, a small shrubby plant, native of lower California and northern Mexico. The leaves resemble the Mexican, but are broader, and covered with hairs on both sides. For more information please follow this link: King's American Dispensatory - Damiana http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/kings/turnera.html The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy. by Finley Ellingwood, M.D., 1919. Special genitourinary remedies - Agents acting upon the genito-urinary organs. DAMIANA. Turnera aphrodisiaca. - Synonym - Turnera diffusa. Therapy - A mild nerve tonic claimed to be valuable in the treatment of sexual impotence. Some of our physicians praise it highly for its influence in sexual neurasthenia, and it is said to correct frigidity in the female. It had long enjoyed a local reputation as a stimulant tonic of the sexual apparatus among the natives of Mexico, before it attracted the attention of the profession. Besides its peculiar action on the sexual appetite and function, it is a general tonic, somewhat cathartic, and is slightly cholagogue. The midwives and women of loose morals of Western Mexico also attribute emmenagogue properties to it. It is valuable in renal and cystic catarrh and in general irritation of the urinary passages, through its influence in soothing irritation of mucous membranes. In the line of the action of this remedy in its influence upon the reproductive organs, Dr. Reid mentions dysmenorrhea, headache, at the menstrual epoch, bad complexion, rough or discolored patches on the skin with acne, especially of a severe type, depending upon uterine irritation. Eruption resembling eczema, from insufficient menstruation. Dr. Watkins gives as its further indications, delayed or suppressed menstruation in young girls, irregularity at the beginning of menstruation, amenorrhea in very young girls. It will certainly allay sensitiveness of the sympathetic nervous system to irritations caused by disorders of the womb and ovaries. The remedy must be given in full doses, to accomplish these results. From five to ten grains of the extract is necessary three or four times a day, and persisted in. The writer has been using it as suggested, and has been very well satisfied with it. For more information please follow this link: The American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy. by Finley Ellingwood, M.D., 1919.http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/ellingwood/turnera.html.
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