on Real Time, Fucker was droning on about how viagra has been a godsend for rhinos- thousands killed every year before viagra to make aphrodisiacs for asian men...after viagra- ZERO rhinos getting slaughtered...
to misquote the b-52's- next time, before he talks, he should read a book- or at least a webpage.
http://www.salon.com/health/feature/1999/09/22/medicinal_animals/...I wondered whether the invention of Viagra was also good news for the rhinoceros and the tiger. However, it appeared that at least one of my premises was unsound. Rhino horn and tiger bone used as aphrodisiacs in Asian medicine? "A myth among Westerners," said World Wildlife Fund (WWF) staff botanist Chris Robbins, who works in the traffic department, which monitors international trade in endangered species. His colleague Judy Mills, director of WWF's traffic office in Hong Kong, agreed. "All this stuff about rhinos and tigers being used for aphrodisiacs -- it's a complete myth."
A myth?
Well, almost. It's true that rhino parts (horns in particular) and tiger parts have been used for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), also called Traditional Asian Medicine (TAM), but not for sexual purposes. TCM is an ancient and well-codified system of medicine, and in its pharmacopeia rhino and tiger parts are nowhere prescribed for sexual uses. A passage headed "Rhino Horn is Not an Aphrodisiac" on WWF's Web site makes this point, and adds, "The penis of the rhino still has limited use as an aphrodisiac in Laos, Thailand, and India, and genital tonic pills are still on the market in China, but the horn is generally used as a fever-reducing remedy." Not just any fever, but high, life-threatening fevers, the kind of fever that led one traditional medicine practitioner who is also a conservationist to tell Mills "he would take the last horn off the last rhino if his child were dying of fever."
While Hoffmann-La Roche researchers didn't find that rhino horn had any effect at all on the human body, some Hong Kong scientists working with rats reported that massive doses had some effect on fever...
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