Weird Plague Treatments or Put Down that Chicken

 Weird Plague Treatments or Put Down that Chicken

Well, it’s been over a year. Our good friend Covid is like that one annoying relative that shows to ruin every get-together and won’t go away. Our ancestors survived bouts of the Black Death with their homemade treatments. I say it’s time to reach back in history and start trying them again.

Helpful Animals or What is Mom Doing with that Chicken?

Snakes often got the blame for the plague, their evil vapors fouling the air, but they could make amends. According to Medieval medicine, one evil attracts another, so pieces of an “evil” snake placed on the patient would draw out the evil sickness. Low and behold, they were cured. Or died of blood poisoning. 

Squeamish about snakes? How about leeches? They were used to suck out the “bad” blood that caused the disease and leave the good blood in the body. Or not, and the patient died. Then there’s also chopped up pigeons. Rub bloody parts all over and stand back while the cure takes hold or the neighbors call the cops.

My favorite treatment is the Vicary Method, named after an ancient doctor named Thomas Vicary. I can’t understand why it hasn’t made the rounds. He was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. He must have known what he was doing. Of course, back then being a doctor didn’t require a medical degree, basic knowledge of sanitation, or even common sense. The Vicary Method should really have been called, “What the Hell are you Doing with that Chicken?” The noble doctor would pluck feathers from a chicken’s rump, and then tie the chicken to the patient, so the rump touched an open sore. He believed chickens breathed through their bottoms, so the semi-plucked chicken would draw the plague from the patient. The idea of transmitting a bacterial infection never crossed his mind. If the patient died, so be it. If chicken died first, he’d simply slap on another.

Out of Chicken Butts? Try Vegetables or Emeralds.

For the vegetarians among you or those low on chicken butts there other cures guaranteed 100% effective by our Medieval ancestors. Rub onions on your skin or a eat a combination of mustard, mint sauce, apple sauce and horseradish to balance wet, dry, hot and cold humors in the body. It will definitely effect a cure, if it doesn’t cause the runs first. Have a delicate digestion? Down a delicious crushed emerald. No emeralds lying around? Other tasty suggestions were drinking vinegar, arsenic, mercury or even ten-year-old treacle. Why it had to be ten-years-old is beyond me, but what’s the point of waiting for it to age? The arsenic and mercury would put you six feet under immediately.

Treatments that May be Worse than the Disease.

Clean urine had healing properties, according to ancient medical texts. So, they advised suffers to dive right into a urine bath. Poop mixed with lily root and tree sap was guaranteed to chase away the plague and anyone else with a sense of smell.

For a last resort use flagellation. People whipped themselves to purge their bodies of the sins that brought the plague in the first place. Other believed the hell with that. The best way to chase away the plague was in wild abandon so sickness couldn’t catch you; pillage, loot and then party until the cows come home. I’m with them.

When your Health was Written in the Stars: Medieval Medicine and Astrology

It’s the middle of the Medieval Ages and you’re not feeling up to snuff. There are no HMO’s so what’s a person to do? Luckily, the local doctor has the right astrological charts to get you back in fighting shape. The basis of medieval medicine was the perceived belief in the connection between astrology and human anatomy. Astral connections weren’t unique to Europeans. The Babylonians created the first organized system of astrology, mostly as a way of divining information about political events in particular locations. Historically, kings and emperors were known to call upon designated court astrologers before going into ward. The Egyptians improved on the Babylonia system and devised the zodiac around the 1st century BC. Ptolemy, who lived in Alexandria further developed horoscopic astrology into signs we know today.

Ancient peoples believed astrological bodies had the power to rule fortunes on Earth, so why not the human body, too? To treat a patient, a medieval physician needed to consult the stars, specifically the location of the moon. In the case of an operation, the first step was to check the moon’s alignment. A close relationship to a constellation signaled that a zodiac sign was active. Unlike solar counterparts, lunar signs last only two or three days, rather than an entire month.  If the moon blocked Leo then Leo was active and when a sign was active, it was dangerous to operate on associated body parts. You better hope that boil on your foot didn’t fester until the doctor considered it safe to lance.

The Middle Ages had no telescopes, so illnesses and their treatments were only ascribed to the seven planets visible with the naked eye along with the sun and the moon. Each one was believed to affect specific body parts and some were clearly holdovers from ancient myths. Venus and Mars, for instance were linked to reproductive systems. Where else would you expect from the goddess of love and the uber-macho god of war? Specific diseases also had their own astrological signs. Poisoning was linked to Saturn, insanity to Mercury and liver trouble to Jupiter.

Astrological signs were connected to specific body parts and covered a person head to toe. Since Aries was the first sign in the zodiac it affected the uppermost region of the head. The next sign was Taurus who affected the throat and neck. Other signs continued the downward progression in order until reaching Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac who had responsibility for the feet and toes.

After voicing a complaint to a doctor, the diagnosis process began by determining where the moon was in location to a constellation when the patient first became ill. Doctors had special almanacs (or calendars) containing illustrated star charts, allowing them to check the positions of the stars before making a diagnosis. They often had illustration for patients, the Middle Ages equivalent of those pamphlets at your doctor’s office. How did the system work? Let’s say, an examination of your astrological chart determined the need for therapeutic bloodletting. Because the moon governed blood flow, it was best not scheduled during a full moon. Then you needed to know where the moon was in a constellation and the birth date of the patient to determine the effect on their astrological sign.

Complex and confusing, no? The presumed relationships between the heavenly bodies and the human body were so complex, numerous, and contradictory that in practice it was impossible to carry out any operation without breaking some astrological rule. Naturally, many patients died, but the reasoning was don’t blame the practitioner, blame the system. Someone simply miscalculated a star chart. It takes one wonder how many patients survived not because of medieval doctors and their lunatic diagnoses, but in spite of them.