My dear fellow courtiers, dear actual and future patients,
We all burned ourselves in our lives: handling a too hot kettle for instance, putting on the fireplace or trying to smoke a pipe while enjoying the sun dawn. Yes, accidents do happen. And we all know, burning wounds can leave nasty scars. That's why today i offer you a simple but very effective recipe to heal those wounds without leaving such an ugly mark on your delicate skin.
Again i am using a recipe found in that very useful notebook compiled by members of the family of Rev. William Twigge, archdeacon of Limerick from 1705 to 1726.
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To heale a burn without a scarr.
Take a handfull of the yellow scurk that grows on old walls and halfe as much of the white of hen's dung and as much fresh hog's lard as will make it into an ointment.
Let it boile well and then strain thro a fine cloth and keep it for use.
It must be annointed with it twice a day with a fether and in a short time it will heal it.
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Oil of swallows, juice of snail and a pinch of hens dung may sound more like a witchs brew than a list of cures. But these were some of the common remedies used by people in the 17th and 18th centuries. We can hardly imagine using those ingredients in modern medicinal cures.
I found a reference online about a work outlining the nations early medicine " Physick and the Family: Health, Medicine and Care in Wales, 1600-1750", by medical historian Dr Alun Withey.
According to the author, lotsa families had their own store of remedies either written down or handed down verbally, generation by generation. Just like the little work owned by the Archdeacon's family, of which i am quoting from. There were no modern drugs like antibiotics, but there was a vast store of knowledge about the health benefits of certain plants, and other commonly available materials.
Remedies commonly used between 1600 and 1750 included:
* Skin of dead puppies used in an ointment for the skin
* Oil of swallows used for shrunken sinews (withered limbs)
* Juice of snail a pin was stuck into the snail and the juice was dropped into eyes for eye conditions
* Hens dung also used to cure eye problems.
According to the author the use of those substances is understandable if you keep the so-called " Doctrine of Sympathies " in mind. This meant that something in nature that looked like an organ which needed help (a snail was held to be similar in texture to a human eye) could be used as a cure. Alternatively there was also the " Doctrine of Opposites " which meant for instance that a high temperature could be cured by a cold bath. Echo's of these doctrines still can be found in homoeopathic medicine.
Anyway, i don't recommend the above recipe for actual use any more...
Next month: what has tobacco smoke and saving someone from drowning to do with each other? Take care, and please stay healthy.
Dr. Panacek, War Surgeon.
Physick and the Family: Health, Medicine and Care in Wales, 1600-1750 by Dr Alun Withey is published by Manchester University Press, 60 (RRP)
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updated by @docteur-panacek: 09 Jan 2017 09:35:25PM
