Page 46 - All About History - Issue 186-19

LESIONS AND NUMBNESS

Medieval Diagnosis: Leprosy

Recommended Treatment: Treacle

Have you had to leave your home and move into a leper house or hospital
after being diagnosed with dreaded leprosy? Well, don’t despair, because
there are treatments out there for you! Theriac, also known as treacle, was
a standard topical medicine that was used by medieval physicians to cure
leprosy, applied to the lesions on the patient’s skin. It was an ointment, or
compound, made from up to 70 different ingredients – including the flesh of
vipers – and it was believed to cure a wide range of ailments, from digestion
issues, jaundice and asthma to the plague. Another popular topical treatment
for leprosy was mercury, which we now know is a poisonous substance.

SECOND OPINION

If the thought of applying theriac or mercury to your skin doesn’t appeal to Image source: wiki/Levina Teerlinc
you, then you can always turn to good old bloodletting. It was commonly
believed that leprosy was the result of too much black bile in the body and
that the blood needed to be purified in order to restore the balance between
in the blood of either children or virgins as another way to clean the blood NECK SWELLING
the humours. With this in mind, a more extreme treatment was to bathe

Medieval Diagnosis: Scrofula
– however, animal blood was often used instead.
Recommended Treatment: The King’s Touch

If the lymph nodes in your neck them, which lead to the disease
are swollen and painful, then you being commonly referred to as the
may have scrofula – a skin disease ‘king’s evil’. Superstition played a
caused by tuberculous bacteria huge role in medieval medicine,
that could prove fatal in medieval offering explanations for the
times. Thankfully there was a cure unknown, so it’s no surprise that the
for scrofula: the ‘king’s touch’. Also ‘king’s touch’ was so popular. The
known as the ‘royal touch’, the seeming ability to perform such a
monarchs of England and France miracle also emphasised the belief
held ceremonies where they would that the monarchs had been given
touch hundreds of people suffering the divine right to rule by God,
© Alamy from scrofula and supposedly cure reinforcing their position.

HOT, SWOLLEN JOINTS

Medieval Diagnosis: Gout

Recommended Treatment: Mandrake

Nobody wants hot, red, swollen joints mandrake would release screams that
that are very painful, which is why could cause madness. To prevent this,
gout is such a troublesome disease. make sure to stuff your ears with mud
Luckily, there’s a medieval treatment so that you can’t hear them!
that can cure it once and for all! Mix
some powdered mandrake with wine SECOND OPINION
and drink the concoction for seven days If you don’t want to risk being driven
to reduce the swelling and relieve the mad by a mandrake, there’s another
pain for good. Mandrake was a popular herbal medicine that’s a lot safer to
ingredient in medieval medicine and it prepare. Mix wine, cumin, leeks and
was used to treat various illnesses, but laurel berries together and drink the
it had to be prepared carefully as it was mixture every day until you’re cured.
considered a difficult plant to harvest. If all else fails, it’s worth trying some
This is because the roots resembled a bloodletting to restore the balance
human and it was believed that once between the humours as it was believed © Getty Images
it was removed from the earth, the that gout was caused by excess phlegm.

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