Page 42 - All About History - Issue 186-19
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EYE ISSUES
Medieval Diagnosis: Cataracts
Recommended Treatment: Needles
Most people experience problems with their eyes at some point in their life and this was no
different in the medieval period. Just like today, cataracts were dealt with through surgery,
with physicians using a needle to remove the cloudy lens from the eye, a procedure that
was known as ‘couching’. It was a difficult operation that only the most highly skilled would
perform and, overall, only external surgeries were carried out during this era. For those with
swollen eyes, a recipe from Anglo-Saxon manuscript Bald’s Leechbook recommended to take
a live crab, cut off its eyes and hang them around the patient’s neck.
SECOND OPINION
Another remedy for eye infections
from Bald’s Leechbook, which
doesn’t involve cutting up live
crabs, was to create a salve from
onion or leek, garlic, cow bile and
wine. After the mixture had been
left to sit in a brass vessel for nine
days, it could then be applied to
the affected eye with a feather.
In recent years, researchers have
remade this particular salve
© Alamy using the exact recipe from the
Leechbook and discovered that
WOUNDS AND BURNS it actually kills MRSA bacteria,
leading to hopes that it may hold
Medieval Diagnosis: the key to dealing with antibiotic- © Getty Images
resistant bugs.
Minor Injuries
Recommended Treatment: EPILEPTIC FITS
Spider Webs Medieval Diagnosis: The Falling Sickness
From time to time everybody experiences a wound Recommended Treatment: St Paul’s Potion
or burn that they need to treat, and with no modern-
day plasters to be found people in the medieval period As you can probably tell from this list, herbal medicines were all the rage during the medieval
would often use spider webs – sometimes soaked in oil period and they were used for all manner of illnesses and conditions, including epilepsy.
and vinegar – to cover them. Spider webs were an ideal If you suffer from epilepsy, then a medieval physician would recommend that you drink
choice because they are naturally antiseptic and once St Paul’s potion, which was attributed to the apostle himself. It was made from dozens of
they had dried they would form a hard protective layer different ingredients including ginger, roses, cloves, mandrake, dragon’s blood, liquorice,
on the injured area. Snail essence, which is packed full sage and roses all mixed together with honey and given alongside some wine. It was also a
of anti-inflammatory properties, was also used to soothe versatile medicine that could be used for stomach issues, paralysis and arthritis, but don’t
burns and scalds and was even used as a sore throat worry if you can’t find all of the ingredients at your apothecary – there’s always bloodletting!
remedy! Fresh urine was also used to cleanse wounds
and burns because it was sterile, and it could sometimes SECOND OPINION
be purchased from the local apothecary. While epilepsy is a common condition
that is well understood today and can
SECOND OPINION be successfully treated or controlled,
There were many ways to treat wounds and burns its causes were not known during the
during the medieval era, so if you’re scared of spiders or medieval period. Consequently, it was
snails then you may want to try a different route! Topical assumed by many to be the result of
treatments that were frequently used included theriac demonic possession, with physicians
and dragon’s blood, but if the wound was bleeding a lot performing trepanation on afflicted
then some horse dung was applied instead. An ancient patients in an attempt to release the evil
Egyptian treatment that continued into the medieval demon inside the body. Stemming from
period was to use mouldy bread to treat wounds, which this superstition, magic and charms
is fascinating considering that the antibiotic penicillin were also used to treat epilepsy and
– discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928 – is Image source: wiki/Avicenna several examples of them can be found
derived from penicillium moulds. in manuscripts from throughout the
medieval period.
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