Latest news with #CuriousCures
The Independent
28-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Why medieval couples thought weasel testicles could cure infertility
A new exhibition offers a glimpse into the unusual and sometimes bizarre medical practices of the Middle Ages. The Cambridge University Library exhibition, Curious Cures: Medicine In The Medieval World, showcases medieval manuscripts detailing treatments ranging from the commonplace to the truly peculiar, including a purported infertility cure derived from weasels' testicles. Dr James Freeman, the exhibition's curator, explains that the manuscripts "take you to the medieval bedside and reveal the strange and surprising things that physicians and healers tried to make their patients well again". To aid modern understanding, many of the historical recipes have been translated for the exhibition. One such example, translated from Latin, comes from a 15th-century manuscript compiled by a Carmelite friar. It details a suggested infertility treatment to help women conceive. It says: 'Take three or four weasel testicles and half a handful of young mouse-ear [a plant also known as chickweed] and burn it all equally in an earthenware pot. 'Afterwards, grind and combine with the juice of the aforementioned herb, and thus make soft pills in the manner of a hazelnut kernel, and place them so deeply in the private parts that they touch the uterus, and leave there for three days, during which she should abstain entirely from sex. 'After these three days however, she should have intercourse with a man and she should conceive without delay.' Dr Freeman said medieval medicine 'wasn't simply superstition or blind trial-and-error'. He said: 'It was guided by elaborate and sophisticated ideas about the body and the influence upon it of the wider world and even the cosmos. 'The wide variety of manuscripts in Curious Cures also shows us that medicine wasn't practised just by university-educated physicians, but by monks and friars, by surgeons and their apprentices, by apothecaries and herbalists, by midwives, and by women and men in their own homes.' Manuscripts drawn from the collections of the university library and Cambridge's historic colleges will go on display. There will also be rotating astronomical instruments, surgical diagrams and some of the earliest anatomical images in western Europe. A particularly striking manuscript contains illustrations of 'Vein Man' and 'Zodiac Man', illuminating how medicine and astrology were entwined in medieval times. One of the most beautiful manuscripts on display belonged to Elizabeth of York, Queen of England, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII. This richly illuminated book contains a copy of the Regime Du Corps, a guide to healthy living originally composed two hundred years earlier for a French noblewoman by her personal physician. It was written in French, the language of royalty and aristocracy and spread quickly across western Europe. 'Such a detailed health regime was out of reach for all but the most wealthy,' said Dr Freeman. 'However, the medical recipes that were added later at the back of the book use the same spices and common herbs that are found time and time again in more common recipe books. 'There is even a recipe for a laxative powder, which makes you wonder about Elizabeth and Henry's diet!' The free exhibition will open to the public on March 29 and will run until December 6, with pre-booking essential.
Telegraph
28-03-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Medieval cure for infertility included weasels' testicles
Medieval women were encouraged to use pills made from weasel's testicles to help them conceive. The infertility cure was discovered in a 15th-century manuscript compiled by a Carmelite friar, and translated from Latin. It said: 'Take three or four weasel testicles and half a handful of young mouse-ear [a plant] and burn it all equally in an earthenware pot. 'Afterwards, grind and combine with the juice of the aforementioned herb, and thus make soft pills in the manner of a hazelnut kernel, and place them so deeply in the private parts that they touch the uterus, and leave there for three days, during which she should abstain entirely from sex. 'After these three days, however, she should have intercourse with a man and she should conceive without delay.' The manuscript forms part of Curious Cures, a new exhibition of unusual medieval treatments at Cambridge University Library. Dr James Freeman, a medieval manuscripts specialist in the library, said medieval medicine 'wasn't simply superstition or blind trial-and-error'. He added: 'It was guided by elaborate and sophisticated ideas about the body and the influence upon it of the wider world and even the cosmos. 'The wide variety of manuscripts in Curious Cures also shows us that medicine wasn't practised just by university-educated physicians, but by monks and friars, by surgeons and their apprentices, by apothecaries and herbalists, by midwives, and by women and men in their own homes.' Other documents digitised by the project include instructions on treating gout using rendered fat from a roasted puppy stuffed with snails and sage, or baked owl ground to a powder and mixed with boar's grease. The majority date from the 14th and 15th centuries, although the oldest is from 1,000 years ago. The project was made possible by £500,000 of funding from the Wellcome Trust. A medieval Briton afflicted with cataracts is advised by one recipe to blend a hare's gall bladder with honey and apply it to the affected eye with a feather. But not all treatments administered in the medieval period were ineffective. In 2015, a 1,000-year-old remedy for eye infections made from garlic, onion or leek mixed with wine and bile from a cow's stomach was found to clear styes and tackle the deadly superbug MRSA. Dr Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert, recreated the 10th-century potion and presented her findings at the annual conference of the Society for General Microbiology. In 2018, academics at Swansea University analysed soil from an area of Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, known as the Boho Highlands, reputed to have healing qualities. There they found a new strain of bacterium, which proved effective against four different types of superbug. The display will also feature astronomical instruments, surgical diagrams and some of the earliest anatomical images in western Europe. A particularly striking manuscript contains illustrations of 'Vein Man' and 'Zodiac Man', illuminating how medicine and astrology were entwined in medieval times. One of the manuscripts on display belonged to Elizabeth of York, Queen of England, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII, while it also contains a copy of the Regime Du Corps, a guide to healthy living originally composed 200 years earlier for a French noblewoman by her personal physician. It was written in French, the language of royalty and aristocracy, and spread quickly across western Europe. 'Such a detailed health regime was out of reach for all but the most wealthy,' said Dr Freeman. 'However, the medical recipes that were added later at the back of the book use the same spices and common herbs that are found time and time again in more common recipe books. 'There is even a recipe for a laxative powder, which makes you wonder about Elizabeth and Henry's diet!' The free exhibition will open to the public on March 29 until December 6.
BBC News
28-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Cambridge University exhibition reveals medieval medical cures
Dozens of unique, centuries-old manuscripts have gone on display, showcasing medieval ideas of how to cure disease and live a healthy life. The cures include the use of crushed weasel testicles to help women conceive and mixing stewed apples with quicksilver (mercury) to rub on the body to destroy James Freeman has supplied translations of their recipes next to the original manuscripts, as part of Cambridge University Library's Curious Cures said visitors would learn about "medieval people trying to cure a bewildering array of illnesses and ailments, while operating within international networks of knowledge and study". "It wasn't simply superstition or blind trial-and-error, it was guided by elaborate and sophisticated ideas about the body and the influence upon it of the wider world and even the cosmos," he added. Medical understanding in the Middle Ages was underpinned by the idea of the "four humours". Dr Freeman, the library's curator of medieval manuscripts, said: "The body contains four fluids - black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm, and when the four exist in balance you are healthy."But when they are out of balance, or corrupted, or concentrated in one part of the body where they shouldn't be, that causes disease."It was the role of the physician to "understand your internal nature - look at your pulse and the colour, texture, smell and even the taste of your urine".Once they understood that, they could tailor a treatment for their patients. However, very few medical practitioners were university trained and most people relied on monks or friars, or barber-surgeons, apothecaries and herbalists, as well as home-based while many of the manuscripts are academic medical textbooks, Dr Freeman said: "Educated physicians were also copying down remedies that are very similar to ones we find in more popular or folk medicine compilations - the lines between learned and folk medicine is completely blurred."One example is an apparently proven cure for Freeman said: "The writer of a 15th Century compilation of medical remedies recommends dipping a man's testicles in cold water and vinegar - and if necessary, to repeat this process again."He says he has proved and tested it - and it worked on a friar in Stamford, Lincolnshire." "Bloodletting" was also a medieval practice, designed to purge the body of excess or imbalanced humours, and the blood would be drawn from different veins depending on the nature of the patient's illness."A further element to it was it ought to be done on accordance with particular astrological readings - if the moon is in conjunction with Aries, don't open a vein in the head, for example," Dr Freeman said. "And far from being separate spheres - science, medicine and magic co-exist, so the exhibition shows a couple of manuscripts which have charms on them to harness divine or occult power." How to prevent toothache, medieval-style Richard Tennant, a Carmelite friar who probably studied at Oxford University, wrote about the following ritual:Repeat the Paternoster [Our Father] and Ave Maria [Hail Mary] while clipping your fingernails. At the fifth nail repeat the Credo [The Creed]Repeat with your other hand and both feetWrap your clippings in a clean linen cloth and bury this in an elder treeYou will be protected from toothacheIn the manuscript, which is on display, Mr Tennant recounts how he learned the charm from a friar called John Lymington, who had learned it from an old woman. Some of the medical advice included in a beautifully illustrated manuscript owned by Henry VIII's mother should sound familiar to modern ears. Dr Freeman said: "Instead of looking at curing illness, Elizabeth of York's copy of A Regime for the Body looks at maintaining and regulating your health - things like eat a balanced diet, get a good night's sleep, exercise and rest."The manuscript was originally written in 1256 for Beatrice of Savoy, Countess of Provence, by her physician and includes chapters on courtship, sex, the care of pregnant women and how to care for a newborn baby. Which brings us back to why crushed weasel testicles might be considered to cure female infertility. The recipe records they should be burned in a pot, combined with the juice of a plant called mouse-ear and the result placed inside a woman for three days."The likelihood is that there is some sort of sympathetic medical idea behind this - that this particular part of an animal cures the same part of the human body," said Dr Freeman. "But there's no explanation given in the recipe, which is often the case with these sorts of treatments."Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World, opens on 29 March Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
28-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Why the weasel testicles? Cambridge show explains medieval medicine
Medieval treatments might make you question the sanity of the doctors of the day, but a new exhibition is set to take visitors inside the minds of such medics and reveal the method behind what can seem like madness. Curious Cures, opening on Saturday at Cambridge University Library, is the culmination of a project to digitise and catalogue more than 180 manuscripts, mostly dating from the 14th or 15th centuries, that contain recipes for medical treatments, from compendiums of cures to alchemical texts and guides to healthy living. Among the items on display are wince-inducing surgical diagrams, illustrations such as Zodiac Man – which depicts different body parts associated with star signs – and the recipes themselves, together with translations. What is clear is that while people from the middle ages faced many of the same ailments experienced by patients today, they tackled them rather differently. One of the manuscripts on show, dating from the 15th century, suggests women can cure their infertility by burning weasel testicles in a pot with mouse-ear – a type of chickweed – to create pessaries that are placed in the cervix for three days. 'After these three days however, she should have intercourse with a man and she should conceive without delay,' the manuscript states. Another recipe suggests curing lice using a mixture of mercury and roasted apples. Yet, while some of the remedies might seem alarming to modern eyes, Dr James Freeman, the curator of the exhibition, said it was a misconception to view medieval medicine as based on blind trial and error, or total superstition. 'Medieval people thought about things,' he said. 'They are intelligent, rational, curious and intensely interested in trying to understand how the body functions and what caused and what could cure disease.' In an attempt to help visitors get inside the mind of medieval medics, the exhibition explores how people of the time thought the body worked, including the idea of the four humours that was developed by the Roman doctor Galen. 'Actually, there was a very elaborate and sophisticated system of thought within which medical practitioners operated,' said Freeman, adding that while the use of animal parts might seem strange and improbable, it needed to be seen in context. 'Medieval people were living in a world in which creation had been designed by God and all of the plants and animals placed within it for the benefit of man,' he said, adding there was also a 'sympathetic' medical idea that things that correspond with parts of the human body would therefore be beneficial for them. 'Hence, I suspect, the weasel testicles being used as part of a remedy for infertility,' Freeman said. However, Freeman noted that many of the recipes do not give a source or rationale, with some – such as the apple and mercury cure for lice – apparently based on personal experience or hearsay. The exhibition also explores the role of astrology and even magic in medieval medicine, and sheds light on how people of the time viewed death. Among the exhibits is a brass rubbing of a plaque commissioned by the Oxford academic Sir Ralph Hamsterley, before he died in 1518, depicting his shrouded skeleton riddled with worms and requesting prayers for his soul. The range of medical practitioners is also covered, revealing that, as well as educated physicians, members of religious orders, barbers, apothecaries and common healers treated patients, with women among those known to practise medicine. Yet, Freeman said his work on the exhibition had yet to inspire him to try any medieval remedies himself. 'It made me glad to be alive in the 21st century, for all our current problems,' he said.
The Independent
28-03-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Weasel testicles infertility cure features in exhibition on medieval medicine
Medieval manuscripts detailing unusual treatments – including an infertility cure made from weasels' testicles – will feature in a new exhibition at Cambridge University Library. Curious Cures: Medicine In The Medieval World looks at how medical practitioners of the time sought to understand and treat illness with often strange methods. Dr James Freeman, the exhibition's curator, said: 'The remedies in these manuscripts take you to the medieval bedside and reveal the strange and surprising things that physicians and healers tried to make their patients well again. 'We've translated many of the recipes on display.' A 15th Century manuscript compiled by a Carmelite friar, and translated from Latin, included a suggested infertility cure to help a woman to conceive. It said: 'Take three or four weasel testicles and half a handful of young mouse-ear [a plant] and burn it all equally in an earthenware pot. 'Afterwards, grind and combine with the juice of the aforementioned herb, and thus make soft pills in the manner of a hazelnut kernel, and place them so deeply in the private parts that they touch the uterus, and leave there for three days, during which she should abstain entirely from sex. 'After these three days however, she should have intercourse with a man and she should conceive without delay.' Dr Freeman said medieval medicine 'wasn't simply superstition or blind trial-and-error'. He said: 'It was guided by elaborate and sophisticated ideas about the body and the influence upon it of the wider world and even the cosmos. 'The wide variety of manuscripts in Curious Cures also shows us that medicine wasn't practised just by university-educated physicians, but by monks and friars, by surgeons and their apprentices, by apothecaries and herbalists, by midwives, and by women and men in their own homes.' Manuscripts drawn from the collections of the university library and Cambridge's historic colleges will go on display. There will also be rotating astronomical instruments, surgical diagrams and some of the earliest anatomical images in western Europe. A particularly striking manuscript contains illustrations of 'Vein Man' and 'Zodiac Man', illuminating how medicine and astrology were entwined in medieval times. One of the most beautiful manuscripts on display belonged to Elizabeth of York, Queen of England, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII. This richly illuminated book contains a copy of the Regime Du Corps, a guide to healthy living originally composed two hundred years earlier for a French noblewoman by her personal physician. It was written in French, the language of royalty and aristocracy and spread quickly across western Europe. 'Such a detailed health regime was out of reach for all but the most wealthy,' said Dr Freeman. 'However, the medical recipes that were added later at the back of the book use the same spices and common herbs that are found time and time again in more common recipe books. 'There is even a recipe for a laxative powder, which makes you wonder about Elizabeth and Henry's diet!' The free exhibition will open to the public on Saturday March 29 and will run until December 6, with pre-booking essential.
