Tudor Medicine

Today was apparently “National Sickie Day”. It’s the Monday when everyone calls their Boss and has a good cough down the phone, saying they just can’t come in to the office today.

Five Hundred years ago in the days before Lemsip, Night Nurse, Daytime TV and Game of Thrones boxsets, the Tudors had a different approach to those that were genuinely sick. Going by the following list of “cures”, I doubt any of them were in a hurry to have a Duvet Day….

Cure for Headache - patient had to drink a medicine made up of a mixture of lavender, sage, majoram, roses and rue, or to press a hangman’s rope to their head (?!).

Cure for Rheumatism - was treated by the patient being made to wear the skin of a donkey….

Gout – the patient had to apply to the affected foot a mixture made out of worms, pigs marrow, herbs all boiled together with a red-haired dog. Nice.

Deafness – the patient had to mix the gall of a hare with grease from a fox. They then had to warm up the resulting concoction and put it in their ear.

Smallpox – it was advised to hang red curtains around the patient’s bed because the red light produced by the curtains will cure them.

Head lice – pour tobacco juice onto the scalp.

Jaundice – the patient had to swallow nine lice (!!) mixed with some ale each morning – they had to do this for seven consecutive days.

Baldness – the patient had to shave their head, then, smear onto their scalp the grease from a fox. An alternative cure was to crush a garlic bulb, rub it into the scalp and then, wash the scalp in vinegar. I bet that would make your eyes water!

Plague – herbs were put on a windowsill near the patient, or leather was burnt to produce smoke, because the smoke would kill off the plague.

And finally….

The Tudors believed that too much blood was bad for the body and this in itself caused illnesses. Therefore, if blood was let from the body, the patient’s illnesses would also go. So, some “Doctors” would use leeches to suck the blood out of some parts of the patient's body, while others simply cut a vein.

Source - "Tudor Medicine". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2014. Web.

Image – Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) after her miraculous recovery from the Sweating Sickness of 1528.