Bizarre and strange medical beliefs from past ages and the medieval?

[Carnifex]

Greets all,

I'm looking for misconceptions, ignorance-based opinions and superstitious beliefs about medicine and health from past ages (the medieval preferably, but earlier or later too is fine). I'm talking aboug things like the idea of the four humours (that you were ill because you had too much of one of them in your blood, and all the rest of the humour-baggage), miasmas (disease & illness carried by bad smells and odours, thus you could ward it off, as plague doctors attempted, bu wearing a mask with a filter full of scented flowers), and other bizarre or amusing ideas from the real world.

Anyone got any good ones?

EDIT:I hope it would be obvious, but let's go ahead and disclaimer that NONE OF THE INFORMATION IN THIS THREAD SHOULD BE CONSIDERED OFFICIAL MEDICAL ADVICE. If anyone reading this were to get any ideas about using any of the info in this thread for real, PLEASE CONSULT YOUR REGULAR PHYSICIAN FIRST.

Henry, Moderator

 

[Ottergame]

Greets all,

I'm looking for misconceptions, ignorance-based opinions and superstitious beliefs about medicine and health from past ages (the medieval preferably, but earlier or later too is fine). I'm talking aboug things like the idea of the four humours (that you were ill because you had too much of one of them in your blood, and all the rest of the humour-baggage), miasmas (disease & illness carried by bad smells and odours, thus you could ward it off, as plague doctors attempted, bu wearing a mask with a filter full of scented flowers), and other bizarre or amusing ideas from the real world.

Anyone got any good ones?

Medieval doctors did know a lot about medicine, namely herbal medicines that work as good as chemical drugs made in this century.

 

[Carnifex]

Medieval doctors did know a lot about medicine, namely herbal medicines that work as good as chemical drugs made in this century.

I'm not saying they didn't. But they also, from time to time, came up with some very, very strange concepts. And those are the things I'm wanting to hear about.

(And yes, it is game-related I'm attempting to collate medical wierdness to try and put some rules to them if they had actually been true, like the four humours).

 

[caudor]

(And yes, it is game-related I'm attempting to collate medical wierdness to try and put some rules to them if they had actually been true, like the four humours).

That's a very cool idea. I read once about putting candles in your ears and lighting them would help remove an ear ache. (Actually, I've heard it works too). There was also a famous doctor who believed he could determine your personality (and potential to be a law breaker) by the shape/or bumps on your head. He was later determined to be a quack. I understand that Benjamin Franklin really wanted him exposed.

I have a feeling this thread will be informative, and amusing. Good luck

 

[Dakkareth]

Well, there were all kinds of superstitious medicines ...

Compile a list of strange substances and combine them at will. This works for all kinds of spells, too.

Examples:

Bat wings
toad skin
graveyard earth
wood from a gallow
a murderer's tooth
excrements of a fox
ears of rabbit
a strain of hair from your enemy

(the basic premise is: The more disgusting the more powerful. Also most ingredients have some meaning to them, for example bats are associated with the devil and would thus be useful to work dark magic or fight fire with fire and break a disease)

Also there are conditions under which these ingredients have to be harvested or put to use. For example the wings of a bat have to be ripped out at night from a living bat, the graveyard earth has to be gathered in the longest night of the year and the hair of the enemy has to be wrapped around the packet with magical substances and buried at a intersection of three roads.

 

[Carnifex]

That's a very cool idea. I read once about putting candles in your ears and lighting them would help remove an ear ache. (Actually, I've heard it works too). There was also a famous doctor who believed he could determine your personality (and potential to be a law breaker) by the shape/or bumps on your head. He was later determined to be a quack. I understand that Benjamin Franklin really wanted him exposed.

I have a feeling this thread will be informative, and amusing. Good luck

Ah, I'd forgotten about that one! It's called... phrenology, isn't it?

Right, I think I'll have physicians using their heal skill to examine the shapes/bumps of peoples heads and thus detect their alignment Or something along those lines, let me think...

 

[Agback]

Medieval doctors did know a lot about medicine, namely herbal medicines that work as good as chemical drugs made in this century.

A few, maybe. Barely a one that would get FDA approval today (the side effects are too severe, if they work at all). Poppy juice (opium). A few purgatives and emetics. A vermifuge or two. Crushed chicken embryos to promote eyeing of injuries to the eyes &c. Not much, and no specifics. On the other hand they used 'medicinal' herbs on the grounds that they were coloured like the disease or shaped like the body-part they were suppose to treat (Doctrine of Signatures). And used the homoeopathic principle (treated symptoms with small doses of poisons that in large doses produced the same symptoms).

There was the theory of the humours, and the dietary advice that came from it. (Not only did you 'balance' humours by bleeding, cupping, and purging, but by eating foods that were supposed to be high in the humours one was low in). The theory of humours also suggested certain things as drugs and lotions that have in fact no useful effect.

There was the belief that a woman could conceive only if she experienced orgasm. This influenced treatments for infertility, and led to 'expert' testimony in rape cases (a woman who conceived in rape was held by doctors to have given consent).

Doctors nearly all relied on astrology, performing bleeding, cupping, and purging at times at which the stars were supposed to be right. They also plucked their 'medicinal' herbs at times chosen by astronomy, muttering prayers and incantaitons while they did so. They also relied to some extent on amulets with magic words and phrases written on them, tied to an afflicted limb or whatever. They recited incantations, used sympathetic magic. To cure a woman of excessive menstrual bleeding, a mediaeval doctor might write the letters "a p o o n o" on a small tablet of lead and tie it around her abdomen. Or to cure a fever, write "+ on lona onu oni one onu onus oni one one" on a piece of virgin parchment, then leave it on the altar under the chalice until three masses had been sung over it, then suspend it on a thread tied around the patient's neck.

The theory of 'laudable pus' lead mediaval doctor to deliberately keep a wound open until it had become infected, and only then to stitch and dress it.

There is more. It is almost all grotesque.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Pagan priest]

Well, there were all kinds of superstitious medicines ...

Compile a list of strange substances and combine them at will. This works for all kinds of spells, too.

(the basic premise is: The more disgusting the more powerful. Also most ingredients have some meaning to them, for example bats are associated with the devil and would thus be useful to work dark magic or fight fire with fire and break a disease)

Also there are conditions under which these ingredients have to be harvested or put to use. For example the wings of a bat have to be ripped out at night from a living bat, the graveyard earth has to be gathered in the longest night of the year and the hair of the enemy has to be wrapped around the packet with magical substances and buried at a intersection of three roads.

Ah, no. The basic premise here is the Law of Similarity. The skin of a toad looks all warty, therefore it is good for getting rid of warts. There is a great scene in a movie where a mother puts a live frog in her daughter's mouth to get rid of a sore throat. Listening to a frog croak, it does sound a bit like it has a sore throat...

The points to remember are the Law of Contagion, once together, always together, and the Law of Similarity, things that have similar characteristics can affect one another.

~~~~~

Leeches and blood letting were ways to rebalance the humors if there was too much blood in the system. Purgatives (very strong laxatives, often combined with enemas) were another. Each of the other two humors had their own methods of putting them back into balance.

 

[Emirikol]

I just got my physician level acupuncture certification today. Our instructors pretty much let us know that most of it is heavily influenced by myth, shamanism, folklore, and legend. The techniques have been passed down by generations from father to son..that was until the chinese banned the practice of oriental medicine in the 1880's..then Mao se Tung (or however it's spelled) demanded that it all be resurrected and heavily studied.

The main thing you need to know about old 'medical' techniques are that prior to the 1900's (or thereabouts) the thinking about 'germs,' 'viruses,' and 'prions' did not exist on a wide scale.

The aethers, evil spirits, Qi, mesmerism, magnetism, energy, etc. were and sometimes still the order of the day.

My own profession of Chiropractic was founded in 1895, shortly after Osteopathy 1881. Both professions were founded upon the early theories of circulation of blood and nerve function in the body. Much of the emphasis on the intent of treatments is still based on helping the 'whole person' rather than focusing on a group of cells in the body that supposedly don't affect anything else.

"Modern" methods for treating diseases are constantly being refined too. The obsolete thinking that antibiotics or tubes should be routinely given for ear infections, low back surgery is effective for pain, c-sections should be routinely performed, that the chicken-pox vaccine will reduce future herpes outbreaks, that the flu vaccine this year was effective (at all), that cholesterol reducing drugs reduce heart attacks, that NDSAIDS are good for arthritis, that hormone replacement therapy was good for menopausal women, that drug companies don't only have one thing on their research minds...and the list goes on... Modern medicine is very political, that gene therapy can be effectively accomplished, that the body is incapable of healing itself, etc., however much of the 'opinion' has been taken out by the advent of randomized controlled trials. The truth is that there is no perfect modern theory and science will never have all the answers because there is too much variation in cell organization and energy output in people.

Your best bet is to find information here:
http://www.mic.ki.se/History.html

As to game theory, if you really want to make an influence on your game have two opposing theories go at it. This isn't that easy because of the 'existence' of gods and forms of healing that don't come from 'within' the body.

Here's what I'd do:
Have one group of clerics and healers believing in the gods having ARCANE magic (i.e. inherent to the earth..like the force) and have the other group believing in magic that comes FROM the gods in the form of DIVINE magic.

That's easy enough to integrate.

jh
Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine
Physician level certified in Acupuncture (after today's 5 hour exam





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[s/LaSH]

One thing I've read about:

Where is the seat of consciousness in the body? Probably the most important organ, the heart. That big thing in between your ears is used to cool the blood - why else would so much blood be sent there?

This, of course, is why we still talk about thinking with your heart, not your head. Emotions and instincts were once thought of as being just part of normal thought, not something opposite it. Somehow they got left behind in common English, creating a conceptual fracture between emotion and intellect. If you go with the heart as seat of consciousness, you get to reunify them.