"The goats went wild sexually when they ate the leaves from an Epimedioum sagittatum plant"(a weed native to China called Horny Goat Weed)
Gary S. Ross, M.D.

This plant is native to China

Up until a few years ago, China was almost a closed society. Tourists seldom visited except those that spoke Chinese, and outside of government officials, few people inside were granted exit visas to visit other countries. Medical science completely ignored this country because its entire medical treatment system is based on herbs.

Although China has the most extensive catalog of herbal medicines of any country and very rigorously recorded instructions for their use, it has been difficult for American and European scientists to understand Chinese medicine.

The reason for this is that the Chinese generally treat the whole body - not just an organ - and use hard-to-understand terms, such as yin, yang, warm, cool, moist, sour, sweet, etc., to classify the effects of the herbs.

Most foreign scientists thought ginseng was China’s only sexual stimulant even though the Chinese don’t refer to it in that way. No research was done on the effects of the "horny goat weed" until recently, when a Chinese scientist compared it to VIAGRA®.

Weed Gives Scientists A Big Surprise

“Sex Originates In The Brain.” That comment really captured the interest of American scientists and they jumped enthusiastically into testing it - and what an amazing surprise they found! Desire for sex originates in the brain, and most scientists believed that your thoughts were solely responsible for the desire. Well, guess again. R. Teegaurden reported that Epimedium sagittatum seemed to stimulate nerves throughout the body, particularly in the genital region. This was determined with elaborate testing procedures using laboratory animals. However, any old Chinese farmer could have shown them the same thing quickly at much less expense. Just lead a herd of goats to a patch of Epimedium, wait about 20 minutes, and they will be happily copulating.

Why Goats?

Epimedium affects all animals and man in the same way, but goats discovered the weed because they have notoriously weird eating habits. They will eat practically anything and have often been seen chewing on tin cans. The edges of an Epimedium leaf are covered with sharp needles, so most animals avoid them. The horny old goats know a good thing when they see it and chomp up the needles, leaves, and all. The name of Epimedium is translated as "the herb for the man that likes sex too much, like a goat."