Leprosy Spell October 22, 2017
Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient , trackback
Location: Roman Italy where leprosy is well documented. This is one of these ancient treatments that is presented as science but reeks of magic.
Aim: limit progression of leprosy
Ingredients: bugs, fire, earthenware pot, linen cloth, rose leaves, salt, vinegar and water.
Method:
(i) Gather some insects in. These should be cantharides (spanish fly, fat black and yellow-winged are the best), pine caterpillars or buprestis beetles, though given this range we’re up for experimentation.
(ii) Put bugs in earthenware pot, cover bugs with rose leaves then cover the pot with linen cloth.
(iii) Put a pan with vinegar and salt over a fire and wait till boils.
(iv) Hang the earthenware pot over the pan. Wait until the fumes from the pan have entered the pot and steamed the bugs.
(v) Mush the bugs up into a fatty cream.
(vi) Apply liberally to leprous ulcers with sheep suet and grape juice.
Dangers:
Cantharides, particularly, are poisonous: an important early modern work by Groenvelt and Marten was A treatise of the safe, internal use of cantharides in the Practice of Physick (1706). Don’t, then, whatever the temptation, lick your ulcers post treatment!
Antiquity:
This was gathered in from Pliny, Natural History, book 29, chapter 30. It clearly dates back to the ancient Mediterranean then. But how much older? Does it appear in northern Europe, perhaps in enthusiastic Renaissance readers of Pliny?
Help: Can anyone find any parallels to this medical ritual, drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
For references and explanation of the project and tag index: Beach’s Book of Shadows.
