Episode description
Episode description
One question that pervaded the minds of early European physicians was not whether we should eat human flesh, but rather which part and how much. While cannibalism might conjure up images of wild savages, it turns out medical cannibalism was all the rage back in the day... and continues to be (say what?!).
The “healthy” consumption of humans goes a long way back, like in the 11th century when people started eating bits of Egyptian mummies. Nothing like a bit of powdered mummy to upgrade your muesli. They were a sought-after medicinal ingredient, rising from the dead to cure the living. By the 17th century, mummies were seen as a panacea - an entire apothecary cabinet wrapped in dry brown flesh. Delicious!
The problem was there weren’t enough mummies to go around.
So of course, the cunning European entrepreneurs decided to mummify executed criminals, slaves and poor people to create more magical healing goo. Think of it like a quick pickle you might do at home versus the proper jar you might buy at the store. Jamie’s 15-minute mummy.
They even had special recipes. Apparently, it’s as simple as salting a corpse, cooking it in your corpse-compatible oven and grinding it into a powder.
German physician, Johann Schroeder had a very precise recipe. The main ingredient was a “24-year-old unspotted redhead who had been executed and died a violent death”. After cutting the flesh, a lovely sprinkle of myrrh and aloe and soaking in spirits to keep the smell away.
But medical cannibalism wasn’t just about consuming mummies. 15th-century Italian scholar, priest and philosopher, Marsilio Ficino, taught that elderly people hoping to regain the spring in their step should “suck the blood of a clean and happy adolescent”. And when fresh blood was hard to come by, a Franciscan apothecary even had a lovely blood marmalade recipe from 1679.
Human fat was also a go-to healing ingredient. The executioner would deliver it by the pound to the apothecary, known to jubilantly cry out, “More cushion for the potion!” Okay, we made that tagline up, but who could resist such a morbid pun?
Bones, what with all their desiccated denseness, were surely not a target for this cannibalistic quackery… WRONG! The human skull was wildly popular. 17th-century English physician, John French, offered at least two recipes for distilling skulls into spirits capable of curing stomach troubles, epilepsy and getting rid of the passion of the heart. Obviously.
There was also coffin water to cure warts, and yes, even dried poo applied to the eyes via a powder was said to heal cataracts. Those crazy Euros had really tapped into the magical power of gross things.
So when did all this madness end? You might be surprised to hear that it continues TO THIS VERY DAY!
PREVIOUS EPISODES MENTIONED:
SOURCES:
- The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine, Maria Dolan, May 6, 2012
- The gory history of Europe’s mummy-eating fad, Erin Blakemore May 2, 2023
- A Brief History of Medical Cannibalism: Curing what ails us with mummy, blood jam, and human fat, Bess Lovejoy November 7, 2016
- European ‘Corpse Medicine’ Promised Better Health Through Cannibalism, Natalie Zarrelli, October 31, 2017
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