A History of Gruesome Medical Cures

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
Sir William Osler

We all have a good moan about our healthcare provision at some time. But spare a thought for the folks from our past who had to put up with much more. This is a short history of just a few of the horrible, weird, puzzling and often disgusting 'cures' used to treat various conditions. But despite how repulsive some of these concoctions were, medicine was a thriving business. Everyone from the poorest serf to royalty were on the receiving end of these bizarre remedies.

It is a wise man's part, rather to avoid sickness, than to wishe for medicines . ~Sir Thomas More, Utopia

Herbs and flowers were certainly used in many medieval medicines. This seems palatable enough. However, other preparations were not so wholesome - containing animal parts, waste products, body fluids and other peculiar substances. Many seem like a horried magicians brew - and no doubt tasted like it as well. It has to be remembered though that many of these olden 'cocktails' were based not just on their believed medicinal value but on superstition.

Here are a few of these weird recommendations:

• Rheumatism - for any pain suffered through rheumatics the patient had to wear the skin of a donkey.
• Gout - this extremely painful, crippling condition, was treated by using the following poultice/mixture for the affected areas - pigs marrow, boiled herb, red-hair from a dog and many worms. If this didn't work you could try a paste made up of rosemary or other herbs, honey and a large dollop of goat's droppings.
• Deafness - the following disgusting paste was placed inside the ear and was said to cure deafness. It was prepared with gall from a hare and grease from a fox.
• Jaundice - if you didn't have jaundice before taking the following potion, you would probably end up feeling so after one mouthful. Here is the procedure - for seven days you must drink some ale each morning that contains nine live lice. The recipe doesn't clarify whether the lice should be from the head, body or lower regions!
• Thining hair/baldness - if a crushed garlic bulb rubbed into the skull did not work then you should slap on a few handfuls of grease from a fox. But you had to first ensure that you shaved all the hair off the scalp. It was also essential that your scalp was clean before applying any of the 'cures'. Cleanliness was ensured by rubbing the scalp with the juices from crushed beetles.
• Internal bleeding - no matter what the cause the cure to this potentially lethal condition was to wear a bag around your throat that contained a dried out toad. I can't figure out this one either!
• Skin diseases and rashes were thought to be relieved by placing a piece of wolf skin on the area.
• Kidney stones were simply cured by placing a hot poultice of honey and pigeon dung on the area.
• For headaches a popular remedy was to place a rope that had been used by the hangman and place it next to your head.
• For heart disease there was a particularly disgusting medicine that would be given to the patient. Herbs were the first ingredients - parsley and sage being the most common. The herbs would be added to a concoction of ground down animal skull and juices from a boiled toad. To finish off the cuisine, dead insects would be added.
• Asthma is a terrible and distressing illness for anyone today. But spare a thought for the treatment offered to sufferers in days gone by. The following preparation should be coverd in butter to allow them to slide down the throat more easily - either young frogs or live spiders. Despite the fact that either of these animals would hit your stomach and not the lungs would suggest that this cure probably did not work. If on the off chance you happened to vomit up your medicine there was another tried and tested remedy. This was a brew made up from crushed human skull, crushed pig's bone marrow both mixed in with sweat. How the 'sweat' was collected and what amount should be used is not documented. But if anyone has any suggestions please let me know?

When we think of kings and queens from the past our images tend to be of glorious costumes and beautiful jewels adorning regal personages. This wonderful dream might well be shattered when we look at some of the items they swallowed, rubbed on or stuffed into their imperial bodies. The following descriptions are just some of the shocking and repulsive ingredients used to cure kings and queens of old. These are not made up from some fantasy book of spells, but are documented historical facts.

• Painful Joints - it was not unusual for the dead bodies of murderers or those killed by trauma to be used for medicinal concoctions. One popular remedy was using human fat as an ointment that was rubbed over the joints in order to relieve the pain from rheumatism or arthritic conditions. Not only that, but both royal men and women used human fat to soften and ward off wrinkles. Elizabeth I of England is also known to have used 'man's fat ' to fill in the potmarks she was left with when she recovered from smallpox.
• Egyptian Mummies - the use of mummified human body parts was widespread in Elizabethan times. John Banister was Elizabeth I's personal physician and advocated this form of treatment for a number of conditions such as ulcers, cuts, wounds and haemorrhages. The thought behind their use was that because mummies were so well-preserved they must contain some form of magical life source within them. The damage done by Elizabethan tomb raiders was immense. Nothing much would have been left of the corpses after various bits were ground down into fine powders. They would then be further mixed into liquids for potions or pastes for use with surgical dressings.
• Because Elizabeth had such rotten teeth they must have caused her a great deal of pain, not to mention general ill-health. She may well have been advised to hold the tooth of a corpse next to her rotten teeth and bleeding gums in order to effect some kind of relief. Elizabeth would also have had dental cavaties. The teeth needing filled would be packed using the brain of a partridge. Where the ideas or the thought behinds these revolting treatments came from is unknown for the present. Although the partridge brain may have been taken from some of the folklore and legend that surrounds various species of bird.
• When King Charles I was executed the scenes immediately after his death were ghoulish. The mob rushed forward to dip pieces of cloth and hankerchiefs into his blood. The reason was that Royal blood was thought to cure common ailments - in particular the skin disease scrofula.
• In the time of Charles II a popular remedy for many common ailments was powdered human skulls that were then distilled into liquid form. They were known as Goddard's Drops after the famous chemist Johnathan Goddard. Charles II also used this particular potion as a hangover cure and it eventually became known as the King's Drops.
• For epilepsy there were numerous weird brews that a person could take - if the King's Drops didn't work. These included 'the dung of an infant pulverised' - rest assured it is the dung that is pulverised not the infant. Testicles of a bear, maggots or earthworms. There are no clues to follow to identify the source of why these 'cures' were thought to be worth taking.

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught,
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
~John Dryden

The 'Black Death' and other plagues:

There were hundreds of potions and 'certain cures' sold to people both during and after plague epidemics. Many of these so-called treatments were neither brews nor potions but therapy of a spiritual kind. The Church often got in on the act by selling pieces of, supposedly, holy relics and other vestiges, as well as special prayers and pilgrimage. By all accounts Mother Church would seem to have made a healthy profit. But the most commonly used 'cures' were mixtures and poultices. Here are just a few:

• The first remedy was obviously for those who had money to burn and was believed to be a cure for bubonic plague. It consisted of powdered emeralds that should be swallowed with some beverage. Emeralds don't seem to hold any medicinal properites but what they could do was make you bleed to death. They tended to shred the inside of your body as they passed through. With a person already ill from plague their chances of survival would have been slim.
• From the wise woman or cunning man came a recipe for aleviating swellings caused by the Black Death and would draw the pestilence from the body. The sufferer had to place a live hen next to the swellings and hold it there for a period of time - with great difficulty I would imagine. In addition to this it was compulsory for you to drink two full glasses of your own urine twice a day. It doesn't specify whether you continued to hold the poor hen while drinking your glass of urine.
• If the above recipe is not too palatable then you could try this next remedy, to be used after the swellings have been cut open - cutting "allows the disease to leave the body". A dressing or poultice of tree resin and white lillie roots should be used. Not too bad you may think. But when these have been mixed together you then have to add dried human excrement to the mixture and place these in all areas where swellings have been incised.

General Sickness

Leeches were used for hundreds of years as a cure for anything from the plague to constipation. This was a time when all sickness was thought to be caused by an imbalance of one of the four 'humours' of the body. Therefore it made sense to medieval doctors that 'bleeding' would remove any disparity and so effect a cure. Leeches were the most accessible and easiest method for this. Unfortunately many patients died due to prolonged loss of blood. In addition the loss of blood would also add stress to an already compromised immune system. However, the use of leeches has made a startling come-back. Today, along with maggots, they are used - very effectively - in the treatment of severe wounds and burns.

Malaria

Many of the alleged treatments for diseases come down to us through folk legends and old wives tales. That is not to say that they are wrong, but just that there is not a lot evidence on paper to quantify if these remedies were real or not.

Malaria was rampant hundreds of years ago as it still is today. Many apothecaries and charlatans made a good living out of selling treatments to the scared and gullible. One such 'treatment' for malaria was eating 'compressed spider webs'. Alternatively, you were instructed to eat not the webs but the spiders themselves while they were still alive. Where the belief came from that webs or spiders could cure disease is still a mystery. But it should be remembered that many medicines were based on superstition and that people viewed the natural world very differently to what we do today.

Medicinal Animal Droppings

Not just animal droppings but human waste as well has been used since the times of the Ancient Egyptians as a remedy for various conditions. Waste matter would either be blended in with other substances such as herbs to make a poultice or dressing for wounds, burns or other skin afflictions. But they were also mixed into drinks. Some of the conditions dung and human waste might have been used for include:

• Jaundice
• Epilepsy
• Headaches
• Blindness
• Intestinal Parasites.

Interestingly, dung is still used in many areas of the world today.

Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit - Life!
~Emily Dickinson

There were no qualified surgeons as we know them today. In many cases people went to a specified person or trade, because they were known to deal with particular conditions - in other words they were known to be handy with a knife or other tools.

Quite a few operations were handled by the local barber - this is where the traditional red and white pole sign originated from. The red is alleged to signify blood and white for bandages or dressings. Only the wealthier people could hire his services and many would for example go in for a haircut, shave and to have a tooth pulled at the same time. Poorer people would more than likely have had to rely on other local trades such as blacksmiths, butchers or farmers etc. People within these occupations are believed to have carried out operations such as cataract removal from the eye and tooth extractions.

Trepanning - for evil spirits in the head

Basically trepanning is the technique of cutting a hole into the skull when the patient was awake and without anaesthetic.

In Medieval times, the procedure was performed when it was believed that evil spirits were lurking and trapped within the victim's brain. Trepanning sometimes went as far as removing a section of brain thought to be infected. Of course what we think of as evil spirits is different to the perception in olden times. Many forms of illness were thought to be caused by supernatural forces. Trepanning was thought to be used for conditions such as - epilepsy, insanity and fractured skulls. Unlikely as it may seem, skulls have been discovered showing typical trepanning holes with new bone growth surrounding the area. This shows that the person not only survived the operation but lived for some considerable time afterwards, even years. What is also interesting is that trepanning is not a recent skill. There have been neolithic (approx 3,500 BCE) skulls found that have had this procedure carried out and the patients survived. The photograph shown is of a young girl (approximately 3,500 BCE) who survived this operation, but she unfortunately died from some other cause - perhaps post-operative infection. Forensic examination shows that frequently this operation would be carried out on people who have suffered depressed fractures of the skull. The bone of the skull would have had to be lifted slightly to ease the pressure on the brain and to save life. When we enter the 'Dark Ages' of Europe this skill seems to have been lost for a considerable period of time before being rediscovered - probably re-learning from the highly skilled Islamic doctors during the Crusades.

Haemorrhoids

For people way back in the past developing haemorrhoids must have been something to try and avoid at all costs or put up with the pain. It is known that some medieval physicians used cautery irons to treat them - in other words they were burned off. It is also documented that pulling them out with their fingernails was the best solution. The 'fingernail treatment' was a method favoured by the Greek physician Hippocrates. This was remember without the use of pain relief and they did not have tubes of ointment such as 'Preparation H'. Lucky for some in the 12th century a Jewish physician called Moses Maimonides did not agree with performing surgery and simply prescribed the sitz bath as an alternative.

Bladder Stones & Blockage

There are many reasons why people can suffer from urine retention and kidney and bladder stones. But one of the main causes in the past was due to a sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. It was common knowledge what could result from syphilis, so it is a wonder that so many continued to dice with danger. If obstruction did occur there was a particularly gruesome method, that although often worked, was certainly more painful than the retention of urine experienced. The cure involved a metal urinary catheter (tube) being inserted into the urethra and into the bladder. Today when a catheter is inserted in hospital a local anaesthetic is always used and modern catheters are pliable and soft. You can imagine the pain that must have been experienced by the insertion of a metal catheter. This particular procedure was thought to have been first used in the 14th century.

Cataracts

As mentioned earlier a number of trades were believed to have carried out the delicate process of cataract removal. Sources from the time describe the use of sharp instruments - a knife or large needle - being pushed through the cornea of the eye in order to remove the film. It was not until Islamic medicine became more widely known in mediveal Europe that a more gentle form of removal was used that involved suction.

Dentistry & Tooth Extraction

Despite what we may believe there are documents dating from hundreds of years ago that clearly show a knowledge of basic dental hygiene. It is known that people often cleaned their teeth with pieces of cloth.

There are also documents that describe procedures for the removal of oral cancers and improved methods of filling dental cavities. However, it was only a small and elite group of people who probably had knowledge of these matters at this time.

The majority of the populace would more than likely not have any knowledge of dental hygiene. But it tended to be the rich who suffered more due to the very sugary diet they consumed. The poorer people whose meals consisted of a rougher diet would have had better teeth. But despite their social position many people still needed to have a tooth pulled at some point. The rich might be able to rely on a good barber, the peasants would have to visit a blacksmith or similar. Naturally there was no local anaesthetic available prior to having the tooth pulled and the instruments used were whatever was the tools of the trade for the 'dentist'. After extraction however, there was a number of herbal remedies available that may have helped to ease the pain.

Amputation

Probably the most feared procedure of all was amputation. Not only because of the pain but the survival rate was very poor. Death was certainly caused, some of the time, by blood loss. More frequently however, it was thought to be post-operative infection that caused the highest mortality rate. This was at a time when bacteria had never been heard of and as a consequence hand washing and sterilisation of surgical instruments was not carried out.

Amputation 'surgeons' were never sought after for their delicacy but for their speed. Two instruments were mainly used. First a curved knife would cut away the flesh from around the bone. When the bone was reached then a saw had to be used. To stop the bleeding either hot irons or boiling oil was placed on the end of the stump. Many of these surgeons did not bother with pain relief for the patient. It was a widespread belief that experiencing pain was essential for proper healing to occur. If it was prescribed it usually took the form of poisonous plants such as mandrake. In addition, the use of opium and/or alcohol was common. But many of these toxic brews, when taken in combination, not only sedated the patient and killed pain, but often lead to coma and death.

Needless to say that many of the patients who underwent amputation - the most common were soldiers from battle - were scarred psychologically for life. Not only from coping with disfigurement and disability but due to the mental trauma of the ordeal.

God and the Doctor we alike adore
But only when in danger, not before;
The danger o'er, both are alike requited,
God is forgotten, and the Doctor slighted.
~Robert Owen

This has been a gruesome journey into the world of medicinal cures from the past. But having said this, there is evidence - usually found by archeologists - that would suggest that historical medicine actually did not too badly in at least some areas of treatment. Many physicians began to study at universities on the European mainland and brought their skills back to Britain. Much of what they learned was from text written by Arabic doctors. Monks and nuns as well had a wide experience of dealing with all manner of complaints and did have an impressive success rate for the times. However, because the monastic remedies were herbal based, the church began to frown on their use. The belief was that monks and nuns might be dabbling in witchery, so were banned from practicing. As a result many of their skills and knowledge built up over centuries was lost.

But access to medicine depended on your socio-economic class. The rich had physicians. People in the middle classes usually relied on monks and nuns. The peasants - most of whom lived in rural areas - relied on their local folk-healers - the wise woman or wise man of the village. Overall it is the folk-healers that seemed to have had the most success in curing illness or at least helping with the symptoms. Their skills in herbalism were on many occasions extraordinary. So much so, that most were persecuted during the vicious witch hunts that swept over Europe. But their legacy lives on in many of the alternative treatments that we use today. More and more people prefer to take a herbal remedy than some of the toxic pills frequently dished out. Many more will swear that they are just as effective as some modern preparations.

We have perhaps laughed, squirmed or felt nauseated by some of the brews described . But keep in mind that these people were the fore-runners of todays modern medicine. Everthing needs to start from a foundation and people from our past certainly built a very strong one on which future generations built up knowledge and expertise.