Caroline Rance - What the Apothecary Ordered Questionable Cures Through the Ages (Old House)

WHAT THE APOTHECARY ORDERED

CONTENTS

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Beware, oh faint of heart, for I speak not of gentle therapy and kindly bedside manner! This humble work is intended for the stalwart of stomach and the robust of sensibility; those who can cast squeamishness aside and relish stories of a less than delicate nature.

Throughout history, the human races determination to survive has taken some ingenious and dangerous turns. This book comprises a selection of the more curious health advice of the past 2,000 years, drawing on the work of many practitioners of varying states of qualification. It is to be acknowledged, of course, that the remedies of the past were not universally poisonous or revolting common sense, acute observation and a knowledge of the properties of herbs and minerals have all played their part. In the present volume, however, we are concerned only with the odd, the entertaining and the distinctly unappealing.

No remedy contained herein should be seen as the standard treatment used by the Victorians or the Anglo-Saxons or anybody else. At various periods of history, people facing illness and injury have been active participants in their search for recovery, often holding the power in their relationships with practitioners and trying many treatments until time (or death) brought relief. The advice herein represents only some of those choices. It was not intended to hurt or disgust, but to have a positive effect, and with this in mind we would be wise to see the remedies not as the product of ignorance but of invention.

As the cures detailed in the following pages are gathered from numerous works originating in different times and places, you will encounter inconsistencies of spelling and unexpected punctuation. I feel it is not my place to correct language that was accurate in the context of its time, and shall leave the writers to speak in their own voices. Some were educated at the finest European universities; some gathered together the knowledge relied upon within their communities. And, of course, there were (as there are now) some keen to make a fast buck from peoples very real health and beauty anxieties.

It is my duty as a responsible editor to warn you not to try these remedies at home (or, indeed, anywhere else). If you are under the weather, please consult your doctor or pharmacist.

Yet on that note, I must impart a final warning: think not that the twenty-first century provides you with a shield against questionable cures! We are indeed fortunate in the effective drugs and procedures now available, but they are not to be taken for granted. There are still those among us who propagate scaremongering stories and pretended miracle cures; those who spend thousands on untested potions; those who forget to finish their antibiotics because they feel a bit better. At the very moment you are reading this book, charlatans are preying on false hopes, bacteria are evolving drug resistance, and human nature remains credulous enough to keep strange remedies alive.

Above all, no matter what century we live in, we are stalked by that grim physician who relieves our pains once and for all DEATH! All who gave or took the advice contained in this book are now gone from this world. And we would do well to remember that for all our technologies and pharmaceuticals, we are destined to follow.

As they are, so shall we be. Medicine or no medicine.

Yours morbidly,

The Editor

CHAPTER

I

DESPERATE REMEDIES

Of annoying ailments and deadly diseases

Father Schott the Jesuit says, that to stop a Bleeding at the Nose, you need only to hold to the Nose the Dung of an Ass very hot, wrapd up in an Handkerchief, upon the plea that the Smell will presently stop it. Wecher did the same with Hogs Dung very hot done up in fine Taffeta, and put into the nose.

Recreations Mathematical and Physical, 1708

This quilt must be worn at the Pit of the Stomach, next the Skin; which may easily be contrived by hanging it over the Neck with a Ribband or Fillet, and tying it close to the Stomach by another Ribband going round the Body.

Care must be taken to pull off the Quilt every Week, and to dry it gradually by the Fire; not too near, but sufficiently so that the Heat may draw from it all the Moisture which it shall have attracted from the Body by Insensible Perspiration.

It is by this insensible Perspiration, effected by the Quilt, that the Blood purges itself of malignant Humours, the Retention of which often occasions melancholy Diseases, and especially the Small Pox.

Manner of Wearing the Anti-Pestilential Quilt, c. 1780

Sneezing, provoked by a feather, relieves heaviness in the head; it is said too, that to touch the nostrils of a mule with the lips, will arrest sneezing and hiccup.

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, c. AD 7779

A small living spider should be rolled up in a cobweb, then put into a lump of butter and eaten while the fit is on. Pills, also, may be made of the cobwebs in which the eggs remain, and taken daily for three days; after which time it would be dangerous to continue the treatment.

Ancient Cures, Charms and Usages of Ireland, 1890

Take a Hounds turd, and lay that on a hot coal, and binde it thereto, and that shall stanch bleeding, or else bruise a long Worm, and make a powder of it, and cast it on the wound, or take the ear of a Hare and make a powder thereof, and cast that on the wound, and that will stanch bleeding.

A Choice Manual, 1653

A Fit may be thus prevented: Let the Patient have ready a Piece of Metal as broad as he is able to contain between his Teeth, when his Jaws are stretched to the utmost. As soon as he feels the first Symptom, let him take the Piece of Metal, and opening his Teeth as wide as he can, put it between them, that his Jaws may be kept at their utmost stretch for some Time. This will restore him in about Half a Minute, and prevent the Fit for that Time.

The Family Guide to Health, 1767

Take a ground-worm and lay it alive upon the place grieved, then take a green Dock-leaf or two, and lay them upon the worm, and then binde the same about the neck of the Patient at night when he goes to bed, and in the morning when he riseth take it off again, and if it be the Kings-evil the worm will be turned into powder or dust, or else he will be and remain dead in his own former form.