A taste of old-fashioned European cannibalism: some medieval medical and religious practices included bits of corpse flesh, Der Spiegel reports. This kind of... fleshly repurposing seems to have gone on for a while:
Johann Schröder, a German pharmacologist... called for the "cadaver of a reddish man ... of around 24 years old," who had been "dead of a violent death but not an illness" and then laid out "exposed to the moon rays for one day and one night" with, he noted, "a clear sky."...
T]he meat was to be cut into small pieces or slices, sprinkled with "myrrh and at least a little bit of aloe" and then soaked in spirits of wine for a few days.
Finally, it was to be hung up "in a very dry and shady place." In the end, the recipe notes, it would be "similar to smoke-cured meat" and would be without "any stench."
T]he meat was to be cut into small pieces or slices, sprinkled with "myrrh and at least a little bit of aloe" and then soaked in spirits of wine for a few days.
Finally, it was to be hung up "in a very dry and shady place." In the end, the recipe notes, it would be "similar to smoke-cured meat" and would be without "any stench."
Yes, "medieval medical and religious practices" does automatically shriek "Gothic terror!", but it's worth identifying the different elements.
But wait, there's more, much more:
Paracelsus, the German-Swiss physician, was one of the most vehement proponents of body-stripping, which eventually gained popularity at even the highest levels of society. The "medicinal insanity," as Sugg calls it, of British King Charles II was legendary. He paid 6,000 pounds for a recipe to liquefy the human brain. The regent applied the resulting distillate, which entered the history of medicine as "the king's drop," almost daily.
Scholars and noblemen, as well as ordinary people, swore by the healing powers of death. US anthropologist Beth Conklin, for example, quoting a 19th-century source, writes that in Denmark epileptics were reported to stand around the scaffold in crowds, cup in hand, ready to drink the red blood as it flows from the still quavering body. Skulls were used as medicine, as was the moss that tended to sprout from them. It was believed to staunch bleeding.
Human fat was supposed to alleviate rheumatism and arthritis, while a paste made from corpses was believed to help against contusions. Sugg even attributes religious significance to human flesh. For some Protestants, he writes, it served as a sort of substitute for the Eucharist, or the tasting of the body of Christ in Holy Communion. Some monks even cooked "a marmalade of sorts" from the blood of the dead.
"It was about the intrinsic vitality of the human organism," says the historian...
Scholars and noblemen, as well as ordinary people, swore by the healing powers of death. US anthropologist Beth Conklin, for example, quoting a 19th-century source, writes that in Denmark epileptics were reported to stand around the scaffold in crowds, cup in hand, ready to drink the red blood as it flows from the still quavering body. Skulls were used as medicine, as was the moss that tended to sprout from them. It was believed to staunch bleeding.
Human fat was supposed to alleviate rheumatism and arthritis, while a paste made from corpses was believed to help against contusions. Sugg even attributes religious significance to human flesh. For some Protestants, he writes, it served as a sort of substitute for the Eucharist, or the tasting of the body of Christ in Holy Communion. Some monks even cooked "a marmalade of sorts" from the blood of the dead.
"It was about the intrinsic vitality of the human organism," says the historian...
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