The Middle Ages weren’t for the faint-hearted. Now, there’s no actual thing such as a tooth worm – we really hope so anyway – but during the medieval period, people believed in such. In fact, the tooth-worm myth was something these folk inherited from their ancient ancestors. They really believed that the cause of toothaches was because tooth worms lived inside human teeth. And they had just the cure.
Back then, people used to light a candle or a basic cigarette to smoke out the worm. Then, they’d hang their heads over a bowl of water where the worm would fall in. We’re betting that this wasn’t an effective remedy for toothache. It’s certainly a blessing to know that what really causes toothaches are cavities and periodontitis and not tooth worms.
Lead Powder Cosmetics
Everyone now may want the bronzed “summer” body, but in the Middle Ages, fair skin was all the rage. In fact, medieval people’s obsession with pale skin led to “fair” being used as a synonym for “beautiful”. If you had fair skin, it meant you probably weren’t spending the entire day doing hard labor in the fields, and, thus, weren’t a peasant.
However, medieval folk didn’t want pale skin; they wanted the creamy milk-white appearance – and they went to “pretty” extreme lengths to get it. In Elizabethan times, a popular ingredient for face foundation was ceruse lead powder. Short-term it gave people the desirable creamy white skin, but lead is extremely poisonous. Long-term people weren’t only damaging their skin but harming their bodies.
Eagle Dung for Epidural
Even with epidurals and cesareans being available to pregnant women, giving birth is still not an easy matter. And it is still something that frightens many expecting mothers. That said, we’d take going into labor in the modern age any day over giving birth in the Middle Ages. When a woman went into labor, she drank a mixture of vinegar and oil, while eagle dung was a homemade poultice that was used for her labor pains.
As smelly as it sounds, eagle dung was a medieval epidural. We’re not sure how effective it is for labor pains, but we’re guessing that most expecting mothers would give eagle dung a skip nowadays.
Combs
Even medieval people combed their hair. Although we imagine it was much harder than combing one’s hair in the modern period. Interestingly, even ancient peoples combed their hair like the Egyptians and Scythians. Like their ancient ancestors, medieval folk didn’t have as great a range to groom themselves with, but they still wanted to look good.
Essential to grooming oneself was combing one’s tresses. Combs were used back then, but they didn’t use plastic or metal combs. Generally, people carved combs from horns, bone, or wood. The more uppity folks had lavish types that were made from ivory. Even though having an ivory comb beats having a plastic one, the plastic one does the trick.
Cures for the Plague
Naturally, medieval people were petrified of the Plague in the 14th century. The death toll was incredibly high, and they weren’t taking any chances. During this time, plenty of remedies for the plague were invented — only by today’s standards, they weren’t exactly effective. Some remedies were downright disgusting. Others were simply strange.
While there probably wasn’t an abundance of emeralds around, one remedy was to grind one up and drink it in a glass of wine. Another was to burn sweet-smelling herbs. The logic is easy to see. Sickness brings bad odors, so medieval folk thought that by burning sweet-smelling herbs, they’d get rid of the terrible smell and disease. While it mightn’t have fought the disease, at least the aromas were more pleasant.