10 Appalling Medical Procedures the Romans Thought Effective
1. Drinking the Leftover Water from an Ox to Cure a Headache
The Romans suffered from migraine headaches just as we do. Sadly they lacked our modern prescription meds. Fortunately for them, they had a number of interesting ways to treat them. In addition to the above mentioned re-use of drinking water, the afflicted could apply a lineament made of burned cloth stained with menstrual blood to their brows, or, if they didn’t have to appear in public any time soon, they could bind the severed genitals of a fox to their foreheads.
2. Kissing the Snout of a Mule to Cure Hiccups
Hiccups continue to afflict us today and for all our modern advancements we have yet to hit upon a fool-proof cure, but the Romans had it all figured out. According to Roman author and scientist Pliny the Elder, all you have to do is kiss the snout of a mule. If that doesn’t work, it may be because your lips didn’t make proper contact with the mule’s nostrils. Get right up in there and put your smackers directly on the dripping nose of the mule and your hiccups will miraculously disappear. For my part, I think I’d rather hold my breath or drink a glass of water upside down.
3. Eating Rabbit Dung to Cure a Hernia
The nice thing about eating rabbit dung is that it comes out in pellets, and eating pellets about the size of a bean is exactly what’s called for to cure a hernia, according to Pliny the Elder. The dung must be boiled in honey first, and the rabbit poop must be ingested daily, but Pliny assures us that this remedy has “proved effectual in cases where a cure has been quite despaired of”. I feel much better now.
4. Bloodletting to Cure Asthma
Bloodletting was prescribed for a wide range of afflictions in the Roman world. All you had to do was lie down an open a vein. But other less intrusive methods were also available. For example, you could ingest 21 millipedes dipped in Attic honey and sucked through a reed. Or you could drink a mixture of owl’s blood and wine. If you thought digging through your purse for your inhaler was a pain in the butt, be thankful you weren’t born in Roman times.
5. Rubbing Burnt Donkey Genitals and Pee on Your Head to Cure Baldness
The search for a cure for male pattern baldness stretches back centuries. Long before Rogaine, the Romans had a topical treatment they swore by. Here’s what you do. First, burn the genitals of a donkey until they’re reduced to ash. Then mix the ash with your own urine and rub it on your noggin. Voila! You’ve got a full head of hair. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work. When Caesar complained to Cleopatra, she suggested the Egyptian method: Grind dead mice and horse teeth with bear grease and knead it into your scalp. By all accounts, Caesar was still bald when Brutus and the others killed him.
6. Drinking the Bile of a She-Goat to Cure Constipation
No one likes to be bound up, and the Romans were no exception. To loosen their bowels and get the plumbing flowing again, the Romans turned to the bile of a she-goat mixed with the root of cyclamen plant and a pinch of alum. If no she-goat was available to surrender her bodily fluids, the bile of a bull or a wolf would do. Employing the secretions of the latter had the advantage of not having to be taken internally as it could simply be rubbed on the navel for the desired effect.
7. Burning a Pig’s Penis and Mixing it with Wine to Cure Incontinence
This operation was just the first part of a lengthy procedure for curing incontinence that goes on. The next step is to drink the “swine wine”, and then urinate in the bed of the dog while repeating the words, “This I do that I may not wet my bed as a dog does.” If the treatment didn’t cure the incontinence, the humiliation apparently would.
8. Gargling Urine to Whiten Teeth and Freshen the Breath
The Romans used human urine to clean their teeth and freshen their breath, and they weren’t actually wrong. The ammonia in urine acts as a bleaching agent when used regularly, and whether or not it improves a person’s breath depends on how bad their breath is in the first place. For people drinking “swine wine” and gulping goats’ bile I think it’s safe to assume their breath was pretty bad. Who knows? Urine might have been an improvement.
9. Rubbing the Dissolved Kidney Stone of an Ass on Your Genitals to Cure Sores
No one wants an ugly sore on his junk, especially if he’s trying to woo a potential sex partner. No problem. All you need is a spare ass that you’re willing to part with. I’ll let Pliny tell you what to do: “The best remedy is considered to be the stone which the wild ass voids with his urine at the moment he is killed. This stone, which is in a somewhat liquefied state at first, becomes solid when it reaches the ground. Attached to the thigh, it disperses all kinds of suppurations. It is but rarely found, however, and it is not every wild ass that produces it, but as a remedy it is held in high esteem.” Who am I to argue?
10. Drinking Water from the Skull of a Dead Man to Cure Epilepsy
For this macabre cure to be effective the water has to be taken from a spring at night. If that comes up short, Plan B is to eat the flesh of a beast that has been killed with an iron weapon. But for that to work the weapon has to have killed a man. If neither of those treatments yields the desired result, you can always dip the testes of a wild boar in mare’s milk and drink it. Finally, if all else fails, there’s the tried and true method of sniffing the after birth of a female ass. And you thought taking the Covid vaccine was a big ask.
