Page 57 - All About History 58 - 2017 UK

Through History

If left untreated, some
cases of scrofula would go
into remission
THE KING’S TOUCH
11TH CENTURY
Scrofula is a form of tuberculosis that infects
the lymph nodes in your neck, producing large,
unseemly growths that continue to expand
with time. Rarely fatal, it is quite disfiguring, but
it was widely believed that it could be cured by
the touch of a king. This became legitimised
as a medical practice in 11th-century Britain
and France when kings would touch scrofula-
infected peasants. As a demonstration of their
This beard cure was advertised as being
“perfectly harmless for the skin” divinely granted healing prowess, King Edward
BEARD GENERATOR 1885 the Confessor of England (c. 1000–1066) and
Victorian England was probably the worst time in history to be a man who King Philip I of France (1052–1108) began
couldn’t grow facial hair because chest-length beards, bushy sideburns and holding public exhibitions of scrofula healing.
elaborate moustaches were all the rage. To help, an advertisement for a
topical treatment called ‘Professor Modevi’s Beard Generator’ ran in
London newspapers, claiming to generate robust beard growth Johanna SNAKE OIL MID-1800S
from a mere four to six weeks of use, even by “young men Brandt
not above seventeen years of age.” Created in Germany, the Chinese snake oil – used for
1876 - 1964, SOUTH AFRICAN centuries – is made with the fat of
concoction cost 5 shillings a bottle. In 1925 Johanna Brandt introduced
her Grape Cure for cancer. The idea Chinese water snakes. It is high
was to fast for several days, then use in omega-3 fatty acids and an
enemas, and then eat seven meals effective anti-inflammatory. It
of grapes every day for two weeks. was used as a topical medicine
The American Cancer Society has
debunked the practice on four during Chinese immigration to
separate occassions. the American West in the 1800s.
In 1893 Clark Stanley began selling
Snake Oil Liniment, cutting open
rattlesnakes before massing crowds, plunging
them into boiling water and using the rising fat. Unfortunately,
rattlesnakes are less beneficial than water snakes. What’s more, the Clark Stanley was fined $20 fine for
Dinitrophenol
was used to treat snake oil he sold away from crowds contained only mineral oil, beef violating the Pure Food and Drug Act
100,000 people in fat, red pepper and turpentine – with little to no snake at all.
its first year of sale in
the United States
In Europe thousands of Egyptian
mummies preserved in bitumen were
MEDICINAL CANNIBALISM
DINITROPHENOL 1934 ground and sold as medicine 1ST CENTURY CE
A compound called dinitrophenol entered the In the 1st century Pliny the Elder wrote that “the blood
market as a weight-loss medicine around 1934, of gladiators is drunk by epileptics as though it were the
and it succeeded in rapidly increasing metabolism. draught of life.” As time went on, however, eating human
Yet since it was also used to create explosives, flesh also became popular. Puritan Edward Taylor wrote
was carcinogenic and had a nasty habit of killing the 18th-century Dispensatory describing how the dead
people as they were “literally cooked to death” by human body contained a wealth of cures — claiming
the rapid increase in body temperature, it is little the marrow of bones was good for cramps, gallbladder
wonder it disappeared from the market just four “relieveth in Deafness” and dried heart cured epilepsy.
years later. As if to underline how bad it was, those Later, executioners made a pretty penny off the skin
who didn’t die could develop a rash, experience a and fat of dispatched criminals. “Oil of human fat” was
loss of taste or become blind. employed for wound healing, pain relief, cancers, love
potions, gout and rheumatism.
tism.
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SPANISH FLY 1810 Rashes were thought to be the pathway Quackery: A BBrief
to healing, so it was thought irritating
The Spanish fly is a type of blister beetle, and it contains a the skin could cure History of the e
Worst Ways to o
compound called cantharidin, which causes blistering when Cure Everyth g
hing
applied to the skin. In the early 1800s a London dispensary offered
This article is made
a recipe containing a pound of beetle powder, a pound of wax and up of extract from
a pound of lard. This paste was applied to the skin for as long as Lydia Kang and Nate
Pedersen’s history
it took to form a blister. It would be applied to the abdomen for
of medical misfires
stomach ailments or the lower legs for gout. If the patient became and malpractices.
delirious, he would be blistered on the head instead. Unfortunately Available now for
£16 from Workman
for some, the blisters caused gangrene, where the underlying flesh
Publishing.
simply died and blackened.
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