Biological and Ecological Warfare Started in Ancient Times

Biological and Ecological Warfare 

Started in Ancient Times

Dr Abe V Rotor

                                          Armageddon in acrylic on glass by the author. 

 

Biological and ecological warfare is the most dangerous tool of war, setting aside a Nuclear Armageddon. It is also the oldest form of warfare, as old as the ancient civilizations.

Let's take a look at these historical cases.

• Carthage attacked Pergamum an ancient Ancient Greece city with clay pots filled with venomous snakes.

• The Spartans often burned the grain crops of the Athenians.

• The Mongol Empire once the largest contiguous empire in History of the world in Medieval Times brought bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis) from Central Asia to the Middle East and Europe.

• Bodies of Mongol warriors were used for biological attacks, by flinging with catapult the corpses over castle walls of Theodosia.

• The last known incident of using plague corpses for biological warfare occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked Sweden.

• The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a devastating pandemic that first struck Europe in the mid-late-14th century, killing between a third and two thirds of the population in medieval Eurasia. Its spread was natural and deliberate.

• The Mongols wrecked the irrigation works in Mesopotamia which ruined the local economy.

• Siege of castles and forts was to deprive the besieged enemy of food, water and other basic supplies, while the enemy burned the fields, slaughtered the livestock, and looted the villages.

• The spread of diseases across the Atlantic during the European age of exploration did tremendous damage to the indigenous populations of North and South America. These diseases upon the Native Americans were catastrophic, reducing the population of affected tribes by as much as 50-90%.

• The roots of many diseases that killed millions of indigenous peoples in the Americas can be traced back to Eurasians living for millennia in close proximity with domesticated animals. Without long contact with domesticated animals, indigenous Americans had no resistance to plague, measles, tuberculosis, smallpox or most influenza strains. (Attempts by missionaries to provide inoculation to local tribes people were usually met with suspicion, thus leaving the native population completely vulnerable to epidemics.)

• The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico and the English predominance in North America might not have succeeded were it not for the devastating effect of diseases previously unknown in the Americas, and against which the local populations had not built up any immunities.

• Starting with George Washington in 1779, the US government used environmental destruction as a military weapon to subdue the Iroquoi Nations of the the Indians.

• The US Army consistently attacked the Indians' natural resources - livestock, orchards and crops - wiping out the Navajos.

• The American Indian culture almost followed the buffalo into extinction. Buffalo Bill killed 4,280 buffaloes in one year. Systematic slaughter between 1850 and 1883 left only a few buffaloes placed under protection as an embarrassed afterthought.

• In 1710, during Queen Anne's War, Iroquois Indian tribes used biological warfare against the British with poisoned water sources with freshly killed animal hides, infecting the water with E.coli and other enteric bacteria.

• During the Seven Years' War in North America between the British and French, the British transmitted smallpox (Variola major and Variola minor) through clothing to Native American tribes to which British victory is accredited.

• The French flooded Holland but was stopped by the militant Dutch.

• The Russians stopped Napoleon by scorching their own earth and deprived the French army with food and shelter.

• In 1834 California smallpox epidemic began at the Russian fort soon after trading ships had left. Blankets were a popular trading item, and the cheapest source of them was second-hand blankets which were often contaminated.

• The Confederate States of America forces shot farm animals in ponds upon which the Union depended for drinking water. This made the water unpleasant to drink, and caused diseases to the enemies.

• During the 1948 Israel War of Independence, the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the Palestine from 1920 to 1948, the main precursor for Israel's Defense Forces militia, released Salmonella typhi bacteria into the water supply of the enemies.

• The genocide of six millions Jews during the Second World War with the use of poisonous gas, and other means of chemical and biological warfare remains a sensitive diplomatic issue to this day.

• During WW II, Japan made flea bombs to spread bubonic plague in the US, after successfully testing it in China where thousands died of the pestilence.

• North Korea accused the United States of large-scale field testing of biological weapons, including the use of disease-carrying insects against them during the Korean War (1950-1953).

• The Korean War allegations also stressed that the United States initiated its weaponization efforts with disease vectors in 1953, on plague fleas, EEE-mosquitoes, and yellow fever-mosquitoes.

• At the time of the Korean War the US weaponized one agent, Brucellosis, an infectious disease caused by the Brucella suis bacteria.

• Cuba also accused the US of spreading human and animal diseases on their islands.

• Around 1950 the US Chemical Corps also initiated a program to weaponize Tularemia, an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Francisella, endemic in North America, parts of Europe and Asia. Tularemia was standardized in the 3.4" M143 bursting spherical bomblet.

• The US used Agent Orange to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the Vietcong guerrillas. Napalm was used directly on them as well as the citizens.

• Anthrax spores through the mail was controlled by the US Postal Service before it got out of hand.

• Biological warfare was the issue against Saddam Hussein leading to the attack by the US and Britain on Iraq.

• Milosevic's was charged and found guilty before the International Court of Justice where he later died, for a crime of genocide using poisonous gas and other weapons of mass destruction.

There are many other cases of biological and ecological warfare heretofore unreported, or committed in the guise of natural phenomena. And there are countries that continue to research on deadly microorganisms - especially with the breakthrough in genetic engineering - violating the provisions of the 1925 Geneva Convention that prohibits biological warfare in any part of the world.

The world today faces three deadly viral forms that can spread out globally on pandemic proportions. The Avian Flu virus, a hybrid of bird flu virus and human flu virus, has broken the species barriers between man and birds - lately, with pigs. If the new Avian flu virus strikes, scientists predicts it is likely to kill at least 600 million people on its first major attack. Their estimate is based on the 1920s' Spanish flu which killed 100 million people, a ratio of one out of 6 inhabitants of the earth.

The AIDS virus (HIV) continues to infect hundreds of millions of people around the world, with thousands dying every year.

And now the obesity virus (Ad 36) is fast spreading in the United States where one out of five Americans is an obese. Obesity is also an epidemic in other industrialized countries, and in big cities of both developed and developing countries. The obesity virus may be naturally occurring, but it is possible that it is laboratory-triggered.

Let us be on the guard at all times against any form of biological and ecological warfare. ~

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Living with Nature-School on Blog is purely a voluntary effort to help conserve the natural environment, and to bring functional literacy to millions who lack access to formal education, and to augment formal learning and experiential knowledge. - Dr Abercio V Rotor

Armageddon Series 4: Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life.

Armageddon in the Making (A Personal Dissertation) Series 4:

Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life.

Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life. These are surreptitiously spreading around the world causing many complications, untold sufferings, and death. They turn into pandemic as they merge with other diseases – HIV-AIDS, obesity, diabetes, accidents, are becoming common cases.

Dr Abe V Rotor 

                                                    Rainbow over Beijing 

31. The most prevalent poisons in food are man-made, mostly from pesticides, particularly those designed to control pests – insects, fungi, weeds, mites, mollusks, nematodes, etc – which have developed increased resistance and even immunity through years of repeated application.  They persist as residues in food and in the environment, carried on through the food web and food chain, riding far and wide, not only on the life cycles of affected organisms, but on their interacting populations.   

32. The first pesticide of global importance is DDT (deoxy-diphenyl-tetrachloro ethane) introduced in the forties as the final answer to the malaria problem by controlling mosquitoes that spread the disease. Indeed DDT is highly effective not only against mosquitoes but other insects as well that its inventor was awarded the Nobel Prize. It was found out later that its residue is persistent and cumulative, and transferred through the food chain – ultimately reaching man. Although totally banned DDT is still clandestinely manufactured under different brands and names.

33. We exaggerate cleanliness. We use detergents, pesticides, deodorants, air fresh­eners, and cosmetics. My father used to warn us in the family, "We are unwittingly introducing into our bodies materials which may be more harmful than the germs we are trying to control." Rub-on mosquito repellant is carcinogenic, so with Chlorine added to drinking water and swimming pool. Sodium fluoride mistaken for baking powder or wheat flour is extremely harmful, although fluoride used in small amount in toothpaste helps keep our teeth strong and healthy.

34. Many kitchen utensils contain harmful metals. There is little warning, if at all, not to cook food with vinegar in aluminum pots, not to use Antimony- or Cadmium-plated utensils. Plastic containers react with food, specially the acidic ones, microwave oven emits radiation harmful to the body in the long run. In spite of this warning the use of microwave, because of its convenience, has even increased.  Didn’t the Romans suffer of a mysterious disease unknowingly caused by lead (Pb) coming from their  drinking vessels?

35. Many food additives cause of ailments and death: Vetsin or mono-sodium glutamate that retards mental and skeletal growth specially in children. Burglars silence dogs with pandesal containing vetsin. An overdose may lead to death. Unscrupulous vendors use Formalin to extend the shelf life of fish, Nitrate or salitre in meat products, food dyes, Aspartame and saccharine (sugarless sugar) and Olestra (fatless fat). The cheap kind of vinegar is diluted glacial acetic acid, the same kind of acid used in photography and other industrial processing.

36. The first case of mass lead poisoning occurred among the Romans when they changed their cups and vessels from bronze to lead. Today it is estimated that over 400,000 children in the US have an excess of lead in their systems. This cumulative poisoning affects the brain, the nervous system, the blood, and the abdominal system characterized by severe stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, weakness and confusion combined with decreased alertness. Lead in the bone marrow interferes with the formation of red blood cells as well as damaging existing ones leading to anemia, pallor and weakness, and to a severe extent, delirium, coma and even death. 

37. Rapid economic growth has led to record levels of pollution, producing filthy air rising and spreading over highly industrial centers and densely populated cities. Here power plants, factories and vehicles release pollutants into the air, and as the sun heats up the ground, the polluted air rises. But polluted air cools quickly over water and sinks to the surface and disperses. Without strong wind to clear it away, the pollution mix can build up over time, leading to BAD (bad air days) which can last for several days, and repeated over and over - and can get worse with deteriorating environmental conditions 

38. Bubonic Plague brings to mind the dreaded scourge of mankind in the Middle Ages. Rats are the carriers of this bacterium-caused disease also called the Black Death. It was so deadly that it claimed the lives of at least 100 million people with 25 million in Europe alone. It stopped man’s progress that the period was appropriately described Second Dark Ages, spreading around crowded cities and towns, with the pestilence peaking with climatic upheavals, such as what we know today as the El Nino phenomenon. The bubonic plague appeared in the United States in 1900 and then in India in the late 1970’s. Although modern medicine effectively controlled even before it reached epidemic stages, the threat looms like ghost with huge metropolises and megapolises. 

39. Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life. These are surreptitiously spreading around the world causing many complications, untold sufferings, and death. They turn into pandemic as they merge with other diseases – HIV-AIDS, obesity, diabetes, accidents, are becoming common cases. 

40. On human behavior: “Of all God’s creatures, there is no species more guilt-ridden, confused and self-destructive than man. Fear, remorse and frustration underlie his basic behavior probably as a result of his forbears having been driven out of the Garden of Eden…Man kills not for food, he eats when he is not hungry, he mates in and out of season. His suicidal tendencies are unique. While the lemmings drown themselves as a result of reduced food supplies, man will willingly cultivate cancer of his lungs by smoking poisonous plants, convert his liver into a hobnailed atrophic mass of dead tissues with alcohol, or remove himself from the control of his mind with narcotics…” Arturo B Rotor, MD

Cry of Armageddon

 Cry of Armageddon 

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Armageddon, acrylic on glass, AVR

The night has a thousand eyes, bright and twinkling in song; but one dreary night one cries out, the cry of Armageddon. No song can bring back the moon and the stars - they've died out; under a blanket of doom where the spirits roam about. No other but his own death, and the earth's, man is doomed, masked by power and wealth, destined from cradle to tomb.~

Series 3 Armageddon in the Making (A Personal Dissertation)

 Series 3 Armageddon in the Making (A Personal Dissertation)

Old and dying cities, and infrastructures abandoned into a concrete jungle

As we review Gibbon’s thesis of lost civilizations, we can’t help project the future of countless cities in the world – new, “golden”, dying, deserted. We can only gleam at old and dying cities, infrastructures abandoned into a concrete jungle, or buried in “the sands of time.” 

 Dr Abe V Rotor

21. We don’t have to go far.  Pasig River is not only polluted, it is an open sewer! Pasig River in the time of Balagtas and Rizal was a most beautiful scenery to compose songs, verses, to paint scenes, a piece of biblical Eden immortalized and revered, but alas, relegated to the archives, leaving but nostalgic memories, and gloom sans a sense of guilt, even as the dying river passes Malacanang Palace, high rise buildings, and luxurious malls and estates.  (See Dirge of the Pasig River in this Blog)

22. Potable water is a scarce commodity. The cost of bottled drinking water is ironically more than gasoline in many countries including the Philippines, when we have direct access to springs, lakes, rivers, artesian and shallow wells. Freshwater constitutes less than ten percent of all the waters on earth, three percent of which are potable,  but this is getting  more and more difficult to obtain as watersheds dry up, glaciers disappear, natural sources polluted. 

23. Wastelands are expanding, a consequence of mismanagement and market-directed monoculture agriculture, depleting soil fertility and balance.  On the other hand wastelands like swamps are reclaimed but to the expense of wildlife and natural resources irreversibly destroyed in the same way that I found, as project director of Sab-A Swamp in Leyte, not to mention microclimate change and desertification.

24. Traffic problems are getting worse each day, building up to a point of choking avenues and streets, even private roads are forced to open as alternative routes. Towns like Vigan, San Fernando LU, Laoag which gained city status now experience traffic congestion as more vehicles increase in number and utility. Traffic is today the Number One cause of smog. Smog over Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong is the worst in the world.

25. What a pitiful sight when caught in hours-long traffic! It’s virtually paralysis in practically all aspects of living.  Energy loss runs to millions every day. There is virtual dome visible as smog over the city, a huge gas chamber with every vehicle spewing deadly gases and carbon, joined in by factories and establishments, countless homes notwithstanding. 

26. No wonder more and more people are getting sick of many pollution-related diseases from the recurrence of ancient diseases like tuberculosis, to modern ailments like allergy and hypertension.  When you are subjected to too much stress the body suffers of fatigue, physically and mentally – and spiritually as well. Many people spend their life sick and depressed, dependent on medicine; many die, and die before their time.  

27. The Computer Revolution is touching our faith more openly and deeply now than during the age of Bible Study and Sunday Worship. The marriage of religion and technology has gone farther than following Mass on TV.  It is now available on the Internet the subject of God in the countless denominations of faith.  But even a world-wide web apparently cannot not bind Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists together.

28. On the contrary fundamentalism in many religions is drawing the faithful farther from ecumenicism which has the objective of common understanding irrespective of religious affiliations. On the contrary a crisis is looming with religious members leaving their  conventional religious institutions and creating one themselves, such as Born Again, Ang Dating Daan. Others simply quit.  They are called Nones, literally no religion. They however, have chosen the way they worship, help the needy, deal with religious congregations in which they are no longer a part, etc. 

29. Domicile used to be community-based with indigenous and genetic roots established by history, culture, economics and beliefs, which prevailed over time:   family to tribe to community, expanding into town, and lately into city.  Cities continue expand at an accelerated rate, eating out not only their suburbs, but their former provincial bases for which they were once the capital, like nucleus of a cell. The countryside is now an orphan, while metropolises and megacities have grown into cancerous social structures.

30. Today’s city is basically of the same structure as those in the past, even in ancient times – Babylon, Rome, Athens, even those of the Aztecs and Mayans – and what is our outlook of metropolitan life, and the dream place we used to call “the Golden City”?  As we review Gibbon’s thesis of lost civilizations, we can’t help project the future of countless cities in the world – new, “golden”, dying, deserted. We can only gleam at old and dying cities, infrastructures abandoned into a concrete jungle, or buried in “the sands of time.”  Detroit, once the pioneer and monopoly of the US automotive industry, Is now considered dead, a clear warning in postmodern times amidst global prosperity.

 Detroit - Death of Utopia 


 

Left,  Spirit of Detroit, bronze statue biggest since Renaissance. A family in  his right hand, golden sun in his left - indeed a symbol of prosperity.  That was in 1955. Restored recently, it symbolizes a past glory.

Right, image of Mother Teresa, now a saint graces an empty plaza. Who is the poor? It's ironic, the poorest of the poor could the wealthiest once upon a time.  

 Detroit today, antithesis of progress, failed Utopia.  
My dad worked here in the thirties.  He was a working student of De Paul University in Chicago.  It was Detroit's crowning glory. Dad never knew of the sad fate of this biggest city in the he world in its time.  He died in 1981.  In my visit to Chicago in 1976, little did I foresee Detroit's eventual downfall.  What really is the world of Utopia we dream of? (Internet photos)

Continued      

Armageddon Series 1: Stockpile of nuclear weapons potentially capable of annihilating present human population three times over.

 Armageddon Series 1: Stockpile of nuclear weapons potentially capable of annihilating present human population three times over. 

Series 1 - Armageddon* in the Making (A Personal Dissertation)
A third world war was averted during the 45-year Cold War. As hindsight, an arms race revealed from both sides USA and USSR and their respective allies built a  stockpile of nuclear weapons potentially capable of annihilating mankind three times, and irreversibly destroying the earth’s biological and ecological balance,

Dr Abe V Rotor, PhD

1. A third and final world war is inevitable, it is now long overdue reckoning the first and the second at a generation’s interval. I am a witness to the second at its closing in mid 19th century, and grew up in its ruins in lives and properties, and in the relative peace that followed thereafter; 

 Fiery scene, painting of an 8-year old. Children's Art Workshop, 2017

 2. For 45 years until 1989 that peace thrived in fear and uncertainty under the proverbial Damascus Sword. The world was polarized into two warring ideologies – democracy and socialism – with countries, with few exceptions, drawn to either the side of America or that of Russia, then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR.

3. A third world war was averted. As hindsight, an arms race revealed from both sides a  stockpile of nuclear weapons potentially capable of annihilating mankind three times, and irreversibly destroying the earth’s biological and ecological balance, with radiation and other poisons that can persist for hundreds, if not thousands of years.   

4. Year 1989 marked historical events of global significance: the dissolution of USSR to its core which is Russia, liberating its members as independent nations, and the reunification of East Germany and West Germany in a celebrated tearing down of the Berlin Wall that separated them for half a century. This marked the end of the Cold War.

Two men fighting to death while being swallowed by quicksand, indeed a mutual suicide, by 18^th century Spanish painter Goya. 

5. The new era favored the transition of People’s Republic of China to open its doors to the free world following Mao Tse Tong’s death. Earlier the two Vietnams were reunited following the defeat of US-backed South Vietnam. South Africa, like India twenty years earlier, gained independence from Britain with Nelson Mandela at the helm.

6. But what really tore down the boundaries of nations zealously guarded by politics and economics have been the breakthroughs in science and technology, particularly in communication and transportation, disseminating information through multimedia and bringing people together. This ushered the beginning of “globalization.”

7. Man has conquered space in cyber communication, and space travel. The whole world is “wired” and crisscrossed by space lanes, shrinking the world into a village, so to speak. Liberalization brought socialism and other restrictive ideologies to their knees.  Unopposed, capitalism rose and dominated the economy of nations and the world.

8. The world became one huge economy under capitalism with trade barriers lifted, trade zones expanded, cartels and monopolies emboldened, regional unions created and expanded (EU, APEC, ASEAN), industrialization and agriculture tremendously grew to meet demands of population explosion, affluence and growth of urban centers.

9. Forests were logged, farmlands and pastures exploited, lakes shrunk (e.g. Aral Sea), waterways polluted, air loaded with carbon and gases (CO2, Sulphur, methane) returning to earth as acid rain - and heat. The Ozone layer is thinned out by CFC compounds.  Desertification, erosion, siltation add to the wanton destruction of the environment.

Stonewall of the Heart, by AVR

10. A shift from fossil fuel has long been overdue.  For more than a century the internal combustion engine has remained virtually unchanged.  A shift to nuclear energy has chilling reminder of Hiroshima and Nagasaki  atomic bombing in WWII, and nuclear plant incidents (Chernobyl in Ukraine, Fukushima in Japan), North Korea’s and Iran’s threat as new nuclear powers, notwithstanding.

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Greek Armageddon, Harmagedōn, scene of the battle foretold in Revelation 16:14–16· a : the site or time of a final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil. - a decisive conflict or confrontation. While we do not know how God will use his power, he will have at his disposal weapons such as those he has used in the past —hail, earthquake, flooding downpour, fire and sulfur, lightning, and disease. In confusion, at least some of God’s enemies will kill each other, yet they will ultimately realize that it is God who is fighting against them.—Ezekiel 38:21, 23; Zechariah 14:13.

Continued.

Armageddon Series 2: Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse

 Armageddon Series 2: 

Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse 

Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse, not only in pursuit of actual human need, but his unending want of affluence apparently of no end. The earth is slowly choking with deadly gases, its surface defaced and stripped of natural cover, man-made materials dumped on land and water, in fact its geography has changed and continues to be modified directly and indirectly by man.

Dr Abe V Rotor

11. What withheld the world to shift to alternative energy was the cheap fossil fuel, virtually oozing from the ground and flowing through pipelines around the globe to feed the 
Bad air over New Delhi, typical in other big cities like Beijing, New York and Metro Manila  
industrial boom and millions of cars as affluence rose to the point of ostentatious and frivolous living.  But each car’s exhaust is a miniature volcano, erupting daily, worse than a Mt Pinatubo (Philippines) and Mount St Helens (US) combined.

12. The air accumulates gaseous materials and particulates, building acid rain that turns  soil acidic and unproductive, defacing valuable works of art (historical relics and artefacts), causing illnesses heretofore  unrecorded in medical books, and triggering other diseases as well, including the resurgence of ancient diseases like tuberculosis.   

                     Thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica. Ozone hole has been detected over the Arctic.  

 13. The ozone layer, a protective blanket against radiation from space is being thinned by CFC and other gases.  A hole at the southern hemisphere as big as continental USA, exposes millions, particularly children, in Australia and New Zealand to ultraviolet rays, a major cause of skin cancer.  A smaller ozone hole is building up over the Arctic region. 

14. Gases in the atmosphere trap heat from escaping, thus solar heat together with heat generated by the earth and man’s activities collectively contribute to global warming at an alarming rate.  Climate change has been the cause of climatic adversities (typhoons, tornadoes, drought, blizzards), erratic weather, and other unexplained atmospheric phenomena. 

15. In Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” the world is getting warmer and warmer at a geometric rate, far exceeding any period of the history of the earth except in its early formation.  Warming is traced to increasing amount of CO2 in the air, the principal gas of combustion mainly of fossil fuel that runs agriculture, industry, transportation, and  illuminate whole cities around the world.  

16, The failure of timely shift to alternative fuel even as fossil fuel sources are dwindling, even as alternative energy is available, even as population demand tremendously increased in the past one hundred years, has grave consequences which we are feeling today, and this is just the beginning - fuel shortage, high cost of living, increasing inequity leading to mass poverty.

17. Environmental degradation is the most serious effect, not only in meeting actual need, but unending want of affluence apparently of no end. The earth is slowly choking with deadly gases, its surface defaced and stripped of natural cover, man-made materials dumped on land and water, in fact its geography has changed and continues to be modified directly and indirectly by man. 

18. Reminiscent of the Dust Bowl of the Dakotas in the US in the early 20^th century are similar desertification cases, farmlands becoming wastelands due to excessive farming and poor management, such cases include the Sahel region (Africa) struck in the 60s by extreme drought, farmlands around the shrinking Aral Sea (Russia), the source of irrigation now only a measly fraction of its original size. 
 A comparison of Aral Sea in 1989 (left) and 2014 (right)

19. We don’t have to go far.  Our own Laguna Bay, bigger than the Sea of Galilee, is dying, its once pristine blue water as I saw it in the sixties as a UPLB trainee in a lakeshore barangay, Gatid, Sta Cruz, is now shallow and muddy as siltation and pollution from homes, farms and industries from four surrounding provinces worsen by encroaching  settlements and fishpens clogging the lake – indeed a desecration of the lake’s beauty as described in Rizal’s celebrated novel, Noli Me Tangere. 

20. All over the world lakes and rivers are dying: Lake Chad of Africa, Aral Sea of Russia, tributaries of Mississippi in the US, Nile in Egypt, Yangtze in China, Mekong in Vietnam.  Who would believe that odor of methane and hydrogen sulphide from the polluted harbour of Hongkong is the first to greet passengers even  before landing on the sprawling modern airport? So with tourists on reaching the deck of the 100-storey Sears Tower on Lake Michigan in the US. 

Continued.

Condiments that enhance sexual vitality - Pandan Mabango, Luya, Paminta, Linga et al

 Condiments that enhance sexual vitality 

The proven effects of herbals in improving one's love life persist for a long period, and may be carried on in later years. The fast-working drugs, on the other hand, tend to suppress only the symptoms rather than treat the root problem.

Dr Abe V Rotor

While immediate effects may be produced in our bodies by purified drugs such as Viagra, herbal treatment may take some time before one sees positive results. The latter's advantage is that the body's system can be reached more deeply by the vital components of these herbals, resulting in the development of a more lasting health.

Pandan-Mabango - Pandanus odoratissimus

1. Pandan-Mabango or Fragrant Screw Pine
Family: Pandanaceae
Scientific Name: Pandanus odoratissimus Linn F.

Traditional Use: a decoction of the leaves is taken as aphrodisiac. Oil extracted from the leaves is a stimulant.

Phytochemicals: Aromatic essential oil

Other Properties/Actions: Antiseptic, antispasmodic, purgative for leprosy

Plant Description: Much-branched shrub to small tree with numerous branchlike stilt roots. Leaves are crowded towards the ends of branches, leathery, stiff, becoming pendant at the apex, swordlike, keeled. Male spadices are 10 cm long and fragrant. Female inflorescence is globose. Fruit is an oblong or globose syncarp.

Plant Description: Linga is an erect bushy annual with densely hairy stem and broad, often lobed lower leaves and more or less lanceolate upper leaves. The flowers are bell-shaped, white, pink, and mauve flowers. The seeds, small and numerous, are contained in hairy, oblong and deeply grooved capsules with triangular beaks.

2. Luya or Ginger
Family: Zingiberaceae
Scientific Name: Zingiber officinale Roscoe
Synonyms: Amomum zingiber L., Zingiber blancoi Hassk.

Traditional Use: Tahu or salabat prepared from the rhizome is the native popular beverage among Filipinos. Fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced or grated, is added to stews, sauces and Oriental Dishes. The ground root is also used in making ginger bread, cakes, biscuits. It is also used in wine, liquor and cordials. The root has a reputation in Asian medicine as a digestive aid, stimulant and diuretic.

Phytochemicals: BORNEOL, CAMPHENE, CAPRYLIC ACID, CHAVICOL, CINEOL, CITRAL, GERANIOL, GINGERIN, GINGEROLS, LINALOOL, MALATE, METHYL HEPTENONE, OLEORESIN, PELAGRON ALDEHYDE, PHELLEDRENE, RESIN, SHOGAOL, SINGERONE, STARCH, VANILLYL ALCOHOL, ZINGERONE, ZINGIBEROL, ZINGIBERONE.

Other Properties/Actions: Analgesic, anti-emetic, anti-flatulent, anti-microbial, anti-pyretic, anti-rheumatic, antitussive, cardiotonic, carminative, diaphoretic, revulsive, rubefacient, sialogogue, stimulant, stomachic; for asthma, colds and coughs, colic, diarrhea, dyspepsia, indigestion.

Plant Description: Tender, creeping perennial with thick, aromatic, fibrous, knotty, buff-colored tuberous roots that produce erect stems bearing long, narrow to lance-shaped leaves. Sterile, fragrant, white flowers with purple streaks appear rarely.

3. Paminta or black pepper
Family: Piperaceae
Scientific Name: Piper nigrum Linn
Synonym: P. glabrispicum C.D.C.
Other Common Names: Pimienta, pepper

Traditional Use: the use of pepper as a spice or condiment for flavoring dates from early times. It is also used in large-scale preservation of food (e.g. sausage-making).

Phytochemicals: CHAVICIN, FATTY OIL, OLEORESIN, PIPERIC ACID, PIPERIDIN, PIPERINE, STARCH, VOLATILE OIL.

Other Properties/Actions: Abortifacient, anti-arthritic, anti-bacterial, anti-periodic, anti-vomitive, astringent, carminative, counter-irritant, digerstive and anti-flatulent aid, diuretic, embroactive for sprains, febrifuge, rubefacient, stimulant, stomachic; for colds and asthma, constipation, dyspepsia, nausea and vertigo, gonorrhea, hemorrhoids, intermittent fevers, throat affections, scabies, mouthwash in toothaches.

Plant Description: Climbing herb with strong, woody, twining stems that bear broad, oval, glossy, dark-green leaves having prominent veins. White flowers clusters appear in summer, followed by aromatic wrinkled fruits that are rounded and crowded in pendulous.

4. Linga or Sesame
Family: Pedaliaceae
Scientific Name: Sesamum orientale Linn
Other Common Names: Langis, Lenga, gin-gely-oil plant, langsa, beniseed
Traditional Use: The oil is used mainly for cooking and as an emollient. A decoction of the leaves or the seed mixed with linseed is taken as an aphrodisiac.

Phytochemicals: CHOLINE, CONGLUTINE, FIXED OIL, GLOBULIN, LECITHIN, LEGUMINE, LINOLEIN, LINOLEIC ACID, OLEIC ACID, OLEIN, PALMITIN, PALMITIC ACID, PENTOSAN, PHYTINE, SACCHAROSE, SESAMOL, STEARIC ACID AND STEARIN

Other Properties/Actions: anti-malaria, demulcent, diuretic, emollient, emmenagogue, lactagogue, laxative, nutritive; for coughs, bronchitis, hemorrhoids, snake bites, regulation of menstrual cycle.

Other plant condiments with aphrodisiac properties:

1. Balanoi - Ocimum basilicum Linn
2. Bawang or Garlic - Allium sativum Linn
3. Dilau - Curcuma longa Linn
4. Kintsay - Apium graveolens Linn
5. Sibuyas or onion - Allium cepa Linn

*Philippine Herbs to Increase Sexual Vitality, Rotor AV, Ontengco D de C, and RM Del Rosario, 2000.