Home Remedy

this world whose minds contain multitudes. Actress Mary Lou Henner famously had a condition called hyperthymesia, which allows her to remember almost every detail of her entire life. She can recall names, dates, and times of various events from her past asked, no matter how small. Only sixty two people in the world have been diagnosed with hyperthymesia, and we are still learning what causes it and how it affects

those who possess it. But Stephen Wiltshier doesn't have hyperthymesia, which you might think he does considering his special talent. His mind is also a steel trap, but he isn't able to recall every moment of his life like the others. Instead, he has cities on the brain. Wiltshier was born in

London in April of nineteen seventy four. His parents had come from the Caribbean, raised their son in the Little Venice district of West London, and Stephen was nonverbal early on, and three years into his life he was officially diagnosed with autism. Sadly, that same year, his father was killed in a motorcycle accident. Around five years old, Stephen developed

a number of interests. Like a lot of kids, he had a passion for vehicles, especially American cars and London buses, as well as animals, and to express his love for these topics he began drawing them. But a few years later he shifted his focus from cars and creatures to buildings. His skills were evidence even from a young age. He understood perspective and proper technique in a way that most children his age just didn't. And he couldn't keep the

pencil out of his hand either. But his teachers saw his.

and one of his teachers took notice. They didn't just see raw talent, they saw true art, and started entering his work in a number of local competitions and exhibitions. Stephen sold his first piece when he was only eight years old. As he took home more and more awards, I started asking questions, how could this child create such stunning drawings? And the answer is simple, That's because Stephen

is a savant. When he stopped drawing animals and automobiles, he pivoted to crafting elaborate and detailed architectural sketches of made up cities. He would create them in his head, then transfer them to paper. He drew soaring skyscrapers and road systems, all of which were proportional and well thought out. He then turned his attention to actual skylines and cities.

His first ever commission came from the former Prime Minister Edward Heath, who asked Stephen to draw Salisbury Cathedral for him. Now you have to understand what set Stephen's sketches apart. Isn't necessarily his artistic talent, which, don't get me wrong, is significant. It's that he only needs to see a place once in order to recreate it from memory. For example, after a brief helicopter ride over London, he drew a detailed four mile expanse of the area without the need

for a single reference photo. Another chopper trip, this time twenty minute flyover of New York City, yielded a nineteen foot long panorama incorporating over three hundred square miles of the city, all from memory. But he still manages to add some flare of his own to his scenes every now and then. One of his sketches is titled City of London ten Years in the Future and features a number of yet to be built skyscrapers overlooking the Thames.

Another is called the Great brand New and depicts a pair of hands holding a globe teeming with buildings that jut out from its surface like porcupines, quills, Stephen's work spans the globe, with drawings of places in America, Singapore, Canada and Europe that would be hard enough for any artists to draw, even with the use of reference photos, but knowing that they were all done from memory and in such great detail puts them on a whole other level.

Stephen Wiltshire is someone with incredible talent, one that he has honed over the past forty some odd years, and it's clear that his only limits now are his imagination and having enough paper. Long before Martha Stewart taught television viewers how to bake bread and fluff their pillows, another lifestyle guru imparted her wisdom on the masses. Her name was Hannah Woolley. You've probably never heard of her before, but if you had been around during the sixteen hundreds,

you definitely would have known her name. She was the Martha Stewart of the seventeenth century, the Gwyneth Paltrow of the pre industrial era. She was, to use the terminology of her day, a domestic goddess, although her road to fame was quite bumpy. Hannah was born in England in sixteen twenty two. While little is known about her early life, she must have had access to a handful of educational opportunities. She was said to have so called musical abilities and

a working knowledge of Italian. The details of her parents' lives have been lost to history, but we do know that Hannah became an orphan in sixteen thirty six at the age of fourteen. Needing a way to support herself, Hannah applied for jobs as a governess, which was sort of like being a live in tutor. Her aptitude for music and languages landed her a job in the home

of an English noble woman, teaching the family's children. Ten years later, when Hannah was twenty four, she quit her job to marry a teacher named Benjamin Woolley, and together they had four kids of their own. Throughout the sixteen forties and sixteen fifties, Hannah devoted her time to caring for her home and her children. She was unique in that she kept meticulous records of her household chores during a time when less than a quarter of British women

were literate. Hannah could read and write, which gave her the ability to catalog the recipes that she made at home. By the early sixteen sixties, Hannah had journals full of domestic advice. There were exact measurements for preparing a violet flower syrup, detailed instructions on how to make eel high, and her opinions on the best way to decorate a

mantle with wild moss and mushrooms. Of course, she planned to pass these writings down to her children when they grew up, but Hannah thought other people might benefit from her knowledge too, and so in sixteen sixty one she published a cookbook entitled The Ladies Directory. While cookbooks weren't brand new, Hannah's was the first ever published by a woman, and it was a big hit, big enough that she

decided to keep writing more. In sixteen sixty four she published another cookbook called The Cook's Guide, and then very suddenly, her husband passed away. Now an orphan and a widow, Hannah had to figure out how to care for herself and her four children. In sixteen seventy she wrote a book called The Queen Like Closet, which, despite the name, did not chronicle the clothing of monarchs. Instead, it was

in all around how to manual for housekeepers. It was also Hannah's biggest success yet, being reprinted four times and translated into German. Hannah became one of the first British women ever to make a living as a writer. She continued publishing cookbooks and housekeeping manuals all throughout the seventeenth century, eventually becoming a household name in England. And here's the most interesting part. Hannah was writing during a time when

medicine was considered part of the domestic sphere. In addition to eel pie and mushroom decor, she also created recipes for medications and wrote instructions on how to perform minor surgery. And yes, most of these home remedies were what we would now call old wives tales. This was, of course, the era when medicine centered around balancing the bodies for humors, which were believed to be blood, yellow bile, black bile,

and phlegm. Gross, I know, but this idea of four humors dates all the way back to ancient Greece and it was the way that people understood their bodies for over two thousand years. And so a lot of Hannah's medicinal recipes are focused on how to raise or lower the amount of certain humors. Lentils and cabbage were thought to increase levels of black bile. Blood letting, literally making

yourself bleed on purpose was thought to decrease fever. Vinegar syrup could flush out excess phlem and it also was a cure for the plague. But if that's not a bold enough claim for you, Hannah also thought that she had a cure for breast cancer. Just mix a little goose dung with the juice of a celidyne flower, apply it like an ointment, and you'll be better in no time. But while a lot of Hannah's medicinal experiments should never be recreated, there is value in her work and in

folk medicine in general. Modern studies often find nuggets of truth in weird ancient medicinal beliefs. In fact, a two thousand and six study found that the extract from the celandine flower actually does slow the growth of cancer cells, which means that Hannah Woolly's curious seventeenth century cancer treatment might not be as crazy as it sounds. But still, I think all of us can agree we can probably

skip out on that goose dung. I hope you've enjoyed today's guide it tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.