Category Archives: Food & Drink

1683: Charlestown pastor sacked for baptising a bear

Atkinson Williamson was parson of St Philip’s, an Episcopal church in Charlestown, South Carolina, in the late 1600s. Several private letters from the early 1700s make mention of the fact that Williamson, sometimes referred to as “Williams”, was an alcoholic. Some report that he was removed from his position after an unseemly incident.

In one exchange of letters, South Carolinian gentlemen Thomas Smith recalls this as Williamson turning up to church drunk and being convinced to baptise a young bear:

“[He] was too great a lover of strong liquor, etc… Some wicked people… made him first fuddled and then got him to christen the bear.”

The incident was also mentioned by James Moore, the British governor of South Carolina between 1700 and 1703. After Williamson’s removal he remained in Charlestown and continued as a clerk of the church.

Source: Various, inc. letter from Thomas Smith to Robert Stevens, January 16th 1707. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

c.1390: Flatulence to blame for lusty monks

Written around the turn of the 14th century, the Italian medical text Breviarium Practice suggests that flatulence is the cause of lustful behaviour among members of the clergy, particularly monks:

“In different monasteries and religious places, one comes across numerous men who, sworn to chastity, are often tempted by Satan. The principal cause for this is that every day they eat food that leads to flatulence. This increases their desire for coitus and stiffens their member. That is why this passion is called satyriasis.”

The belief that male erections were fueled by ‘hot winds’ emanating from the bowels was quite common in the late Middle Ages.

Source: Cited in Opera Arnaldi de Villanova, 1504. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1941: Ugandan wizard dispatched with unripe bananas

Fabiano Kinene, Seperiano Kiwanuka and Albert Iseja all appeared before a Ugandan court in 1941, charged with murdering an old man in their village. According to the defendants, the victim was practising witchcraft and they were acting to defend the village.

Kinene claimed the victim was discovered in the middle of the night, “naked, with strange objects and acting surreptitiously”:

“They caught him performing an act which they genuinely believed to be an act of witchcraft… they killed him in the way which, in the olden times, was considered proper for the killing of a wizard… Death was caused by the forcible insertion of unripe bananas into the deceased’s bowel, through the anus…”

The court lowered the charge from murder to manslaughter, ruling that acts of attempted witchcraft might constitute a “grave and sudden provocation”.

Source: R v. Fabiano Kinene, 1941, cited in Ugandan Law Review. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1886: Popular Paris bakery uses ‘extract of water-closet’

In 1886, a German doctor named Gustav Jaeger described a Paris bakery popular for its fine breads and pastries – but also notorious for its odious smells:

“The neighbours of an establishment famous for its excellent bread, pastry and similar products of luxury [has] complained again and again of the disgusting smells that prevailed there, which penetrate into their dwellings.”

When cholera broke out in the area, city officials inspected buildings and water supplies. To their alarm, they found the bakery was drawing its water not from wells but from a pond connected to local sewers. This is not surprising, writes Jaeger, as:

“Chemists have no difficulty in demonstrating that water impregnated with ‘extract of water-closet’ has the peculiar property of causing dough to rise particularly fine, thereby imparting to bread the nice appearance and pleasant flavour which is the principal quality of luxurious bread.”

The bakery was force to cease using the pond, which apparently caused “a perceptible deterioration of the quality of the bread”.

Source: Letter from Dr Gustav Jaeger; cited in General Homeopathic Journal, vol 113, 1886. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1901: Human meatballs sold in China

At the turn of the 20th century, parts of rural China were ravaged by drought, leading to crop failures and famine. American journalist and Christian missionary Francis Nichols toured Xian province, where more than two million people had perished, and saw evidence of cannibalism in the sale of human meatballs:

“By and by, human flesh began to be sold in the suburbs of Xian. At first the traffic was carried on clandestinely, but after a time a horrible kind of meat ball, made from the bodies of human beings who had died of hunger, became a staple article of food, that was sold for about four American cents a pound.”

Many Chinese believed that foreign imperialism and the spread of Christianity were responsible for crop failures and famine. This anti-foreign sentiment fuelled the Boxer movement of the same period.

Source: Francis Nichols, New York Christian Herald, 1901. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1903: Army officer confesses to fornicating with fruit

Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) was a London-born physician and author who specialised in research into human sexuality, particularly sexual behaviours that departed from what was considered normal, at least in Ellis’ time. His interest and specialisation in sexuality was ironic, given that Ellis’ own marriage (to suffragist and women’s rights campaigner Edith Lees, an open lesbian) was largely sexless.

Writing in 1903, Ellis detailed his interviews with “GR”, an unnamed officer who had served with the Indian colonial army. “GR” admitted to an active bisexual sex life: from interaction with other boys at school, to encounters with a host of foreign prostitutes, to affairs with his fellow military officers.

Much more peculiarly, when partners were unavailable and “GR” turned to self pleasure, he confessed to making “carnal use” of fruit, specifically, melons and papaya. According to “GR”, masturbating with tropical fruit was “most satisfactory”.

In the same work, Ellis also details his discussions with Captain Kenneth Searight, a notorious pederast who was also stationed in India. Searight kept a diary listing his sexual liaisons with no less than 129 local boys, describing their ages, appearance and the number of orgasms with each.

Source: Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 1903. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1724: Cure kidney stones with a turtle pizzle

Cotton Mather was a Puritan minister and writer in early colonial Boston. To most history buffs, he is best remembered for his contribution to the Salem witch trials.

Mather’s puritanical religious views also informed his understanding of science and medicine. His unpublished book, The Angel of Bethesda, was an account of how physical and mental illnesses were caused by spiritual ailments, such as gross immorality and demonic possession.

The Angel of Bethesda also included practical hints for dealing with sickness, like this one for kidney stones:

“Take the pizzle [penis] of a green turtle, dry it with a moderate heat and pulverise it. Of this take as much as may lay upon a shilling, in beer, ale or white wine. It works a speedy cure! Yea, the turtle diet will do wonders for the stone.”

Source: Cotton Mather, The Angel of Bethesda, 1724. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1551: Dr Kyr advises caution when eating cannabis

Cannabis sativa was grown widely in the late Middle Ages and beyond, though not for its narcotic properties. Most cannabis [hemp] was used for rope-making, while commoners sometimes used young plants, seeds and pressed oil for food.

Medieval and early modern physicians were aware that eating large amounts of cannabis-based foods could induce delirium or euphoria. Writing around 1551, the Hungarian physician Paulus Kyr urged caution when nibbling on cannabis:

“Cannabis seeds are bad for the head if eaten in great quantity. [They] create foul humours and dry up the genital seed. They are difficult to digest, but are not harmful if crushed with vinegar and honey.”

Source: Paulus Kyr, The Study of Health, 1551. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.