The Straight Dope 10/13/2006

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 10/13/2006

Dear Cecil:

According to the History Channel's The History of Sex, the ancient
Romans ate a specific plant for birth control purposes. It was described
as being enormously effective, to the extent that it was extinct by the
fall of the empire. I'm sure a quick Web search would tell me the story
of a worthless little herb, but I'd like to hear you weigh in on this
long-lost miracle drug.--Brett, Memphis 

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Cecil replies:

We need to clarify the logic here, Brett. The fact that the Romans ate a
certain plant into extinction doesn't tell us much. Today tigers and
rhinoceroses are hunted to the brink of oblivion because the tiger's
penis and rhino's horn are thought to restore flagging virility. The
fact that a lot of mopes desperately want to believe something doesn't
mean it works.

About that herb. Long before hippies thought hemp could solve all the
world's problems, Romans used an alleged wonder plant of the carrot and
parsley family called silphium. It was a sort of giant fennel that grew
wild near Cyrene, an ancient coastal city in North Africa. Silphium had
many uses   perfume from its flowers, food from its stalk, and medicine
from its juice (or resin) and roots. The Romans didn't discover the
plant's properties   there's evidence the Greeks and Egyptians used it
as a contraceptive as early as the seventh century BC on the advice of
physicians, who recommended a monthly dose that mixed a lump of resin
the size of a chickpea with water. The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder
described use of the resin (called laser or laserpicium) "with soft wool
as a pessary to promote the menstrual discharge." Menstrual discharge,
of course, means no pregnancy. One physician in the second century AD
named Soranus claimed a special recipe using silphium had been used to
terminate pregnancies. In Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient
World to the Renaissance (1992), medical historian John Riddle claims
that modern studies show the recipe and others like it would work.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/061013.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

Okay, who called the Continental Congress? I've been doing a lot of
reading on the revolutionary period recently, but there's one thing I
never figured out: Who said, "Hey, let's all meet at Philadelphia and
work this stuff out"? A lot of organizing had to be done, but who did
it? Who decided how many delegates should come, how many votes each
state would get and all that sort of stuff? --Robert Rodger, Cambridge,
MA

SDSTAFF gfactor replies:  

The committees of correspondence did. I assume you're talking about
the First Continental Congress (as opposed to the Second or Third
Continental Congresses) and not the Confederation Congress,
the Constitutional Convention, the Stamp Act Congress, or the
Albany Congress (more on these last two later). The First Continental
Congress gathered in Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia on September 5,
1774.  

At least two inter-colonial "congresses" had met before that. The
first was the Albany Congress, which met in June 1754 at the suggestion
of the British. The British anticipated the French and Indian War and
"urged colonial leaders to prepare for the common defense," according to
u-s- history.com. The Albany Congress discussed the Albany Plan. . .

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcontcongress.htm

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 02/14/1992

Dear Cecil: 

You are really cool when it comes to blowing the cobwebs off old words
and phrases and telling us what they mean. But can you do the same with
some new stuff? What does "funky" really mean? I don't think your most
unabridged tome will have an answer. You may have to ask Don Cornelius.
--Roger K., Dallas  

Cecil replies:  

Thanks for the advice, son, but you're dealing with a professional. It seems
clear funky originally meant smelly. The question is, smelling of what?
The Oxford English Dictionary takes the demure view that funky meant
"moldy," although it notes that "funk" has often been used to mean
tobacco smoke and may derive from the Latin fumar, to smoke. By one
account funky was applied to the smoky interior of jazz clubs and the
somewhat ripe smell of the denizens thereof, from there was extended
to the music, and finally acquired its current meaning of "hip in a
down-and-dirty sort of way." (Funk, by the way, dates back to 1623--new it's 
not.) 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_244b.html

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