Men and women have put more effort into finding aphrodisiacs than alchemists ever put into changing lead into gold. Metals at least hold still; other people’s sexual success has the bewitching fluidity of quicksilver.

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One of the oldest medical texts, the Ebers papyrus, recommended wrapping a wilting penis in henbane and animal brains, in beans and sawdust of pine and willow, in onion and goose fat and pig’s dung. Elsewhere in the ancient world, as in the Babylonian code of Hammurabi, doctors like myself were punished if we failed to treat a condition after claiming it was fixable – by having our hands cut off, for example. This concentrated our minds wonderfully. For the ancient Egyptians it was enough that you had followed canonical advice: you weren’t responsible for consequences. And sometimes the penis poultice must have worked: the power of placebos should never be under-estimated.

History tells us people used to be gullible. The ancient Egyptians revered an aphrodisiac so powerful that it could cause an uncontrollable frenzy of lust. The aphrodisiac in question was lettuce. Romaine – also called Cos – is what you use for Caesar........

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