A Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs

by Harry E. Wedeck, Jill Karla Shcwarz

This book is in the nature of a literary and historical survey of aphrodisiacs, their objectives, techniques, and effectiveness. The contents cover world-wide territories, and range from antiquity through the Middle Ages down to the present day. With academic emphasis, they point up the continuous urgency that has driven men in quest of an erotic elixir and a putative panacea, in the form of philtres and unguents, invocations, prescriptions, and mechanistic devices, for their exhausted vigors. Harry E. Wedeck teaches classical literature at Brooklyn College.

Genres: Nonfiction

158 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Harry Ezekiel Wedeck was a linguist and classical scholar who served as chairman of the department of classical languages at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn from 1935 to 1950 and then taught the classics at Brooklyn College until 1968. Afterward he lectured on medieval studies at the New School for Social Research, until 1974.