Category Archives: Medicine

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 His unpublished book, The Angel of Bethesda, was an account of how physical and mental illnesses were caused by spiritual ailments, such as gross immorality and demonic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.

1694: Scottish advice on when to conceive

In 1694, Scottish doctor James McMath published The Expert Midwife in Edinburgh. McMath’s book was one of several guides to pregnancy and childbirth available at the time.

Its content is mostly unremarkable, filled with medical advice standard for the time. McMath’s flowery writing style, however, sometimes bordered on the absurd. He refused to include an anatomical description of the female genitalia, out of “modesty and reverence to nature” – yet likens pregnant women to “tender vessels” on a “long and perilous voyage [on] rough and rocky seas”.

Even more strange is McMath’s account of the best time for conception, when:

“..the blood of the courses [menstrual fluid] is of a florid bright colour and smelling like marigolds.”

Source: James McMath, The Expert Midwife, 1694, p.81. 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.

c.2600BC: An ancient Chinese cure for toothache

A Chinese remedy for severe toothache, purportedly written by Huangdi, the ‘Yellow Emperor’, calls for a strange mix of ingredients to be blended and shoved up the nose:

“Roast a piece of garlic then crush it between the teeth. Mix with chopped horseradish seeds then make into a paste with human breast milk. Form this paste into pills and place one into the nostril, on the opposite place to where the pain is located.”

Source: Chinese medical treatise circa 2600BC, cited in P Dabry, La Medecine chez les Chinois, 1863. 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.

1688: Tortoises, lungs and snails – and sugar candy

Theodore Mayerne (1573-1655) was a Swiss-born physician who traveled widely to study, research and work in medicine. By the early 1600s, he was one of several personal doctors to the French king, Henry IV. He also spent time in the royal and aristocratic courts of Denmark and Britain, eventually settling and setting up practice in the latter.

Like many physicians of his time, Mayerne believed that illnesses and injuries must be ‘shocked’ out of the body with chemical concoctions. The more foul and disgusting these substances were, the more effective they would be.

For problems with the lungs or breathing, Mayerne recommended a particularly gnarly brew – though it at least contained something a little sweet:

“A syrup made with the flesh of tortoises, snails, the lungs of animals, frogs and crawfish, all boiled in scabrous and coltsfoot water, adding at the last sugar candy.”

Source: Theodore Mayerne, cited in Anne Somerset, Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I, 1997. 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.