Page 45 - All About History - Issue 186-19

Medieval MD
RASH AND FEVER
Medieval Diagnosis: Smallpox
Recommended Treatment: ‘Red Therapy’
Have you been suffering with a high fever,
headaches, fatigue and vomiting, with lesions
appearing all over your body, turning into
blisters? It sounds like you’ve contracted
smallpox, a nasty and contagious disease, but
don’t worry – a bit of red therapy should sort
you out! In the medieval period it was believed
that the colour red had healing properties,
so patients with smallpox would be wrapped
in red cloth and their bedchambers draped with
red hangings, and they would only drink red
fluids such as pomegranate juice and red wine.
In some cases, even red implements were used
© Getty Images
by physicians as part of the treatment, which
was adopted in Europe following the suggestion
of Persian physician Rhazes in 910. The English
physician John of Gaddesden used red therapy
to treat Prince John, the son of King Edward
II, which he wrote about in his textbook Rosa
Medicinae. Red therapy persisted as a treatment
for smallpox for centuries, and even Queen
Elizabeth I was treated with it during her battle
with the disease in 1562. If you’re lucky enough
to survive your bout of smallpox then don’t
worry, you will be immune to the disease for © Alamy
the rest of your life!
HEADACHES
Medieval Diagnosis:
Pressure Build-up
Recommended Treatment:
Trepanning
Do you have a headache or a migraine that
just won’t go away? In the medieval period,
a popular treatment to alleviate the pain was
trepanning, a procedure in which a hole
was drilled into the head to relieve pressure.
In reality, trepanning exposed brain tissue
and the resulting wound would often become
infected, ultimately leading to death. Another
invasive method was suggested by Arabic
physician Abu al-Qasim, which involved
making an incision in the temple and sticking
a piece of garlic inside it for 15 hours. Remove
the garlic and leave the wound alone for two to
three days and then apply some cotton soaked
in butter. Once the wound develops some pus,
take a red hot iron and cauterise your head.
SECOND OPINION
If you don’t like the sound of having a hole
drilled into your head, then there are plenty
of other weird medieval treatments to cure
your headache! For example, Ali ibn Isa
al-Kahhal, an Arabic physician between the
10th and 11th centuries, suggested that you
should tie a dead mole to your head in order
to cure a headache. For a herbal alternative,
one Anglo-Saxon recipe from Bald’s
Leechbook recommended mixing beetroot and
honey and applying the juice on your head,
before lying back in the sun and allowing the
juice to run down your face.
45