“Now we don’t have disease unless we’ve broken some natural law, so every disease is a result of a violation of something.”

“Doctors don’t read the old textbooks anymore.”

“Iboga is one of the plants that animals eat to get high. Gorillas, porcupines, and wild boars in Gabon and the northern Congo are said to favor it. Natives say wild boars dig up and eat the roots, ‘only to go into a wild frenzy of jumping around, perhaps fleeing from frightening visions.’”

“Shortly after the Gold Rush of 1849, Hangtown Fry, one of the most famous American oyster dishes, was created in the California town of Placerville (known back then as Hangtown because it was a major center for administering justice as well as transacting business) at the Cary House by a chef named ‘Nick Hangtown.

‘”According to legend, a miner who had just struck it rich came into the Cary House Hotel demanding the priciest breakfast available. The expensive dish made from oysters and eggs soon became a San Francisco signature breakfast and a favorite dish for gold diggers working in the mining center. Add a prostitute for dessert (yes, they were in abundance in Hangtown) and the meal could be called Hangtown Fry with cheesecake. The combination of fried eggs and oysters with a side of bacon was also a favorite last meal for condemned prisoners prior to execution.

“Who wants to die with their mast at half-staff?”

“Doctors in the 1940s called the newly purified hormone ‘medical dynamite’ and ‘sexual TNT,’ but long before then, testosterone had been seen as the active principle underlying maleness, the source of masculine vigour and vitality.”