Buzz
From ancient Rome to the 20th century, medicinal cannibalism, or corpse medicine, was pervasive across all tiers of European society. People consumed and applied remedies derived from human brains, flesh, fat, livers, blood, skulls, bones, hair, and even sweat. Monarchs, popes, scholars, and commoners alike embraced these treatments. Shakespeare referenced it, doctors prescribed it, apothecaries traded it, and one king even became part of it, while another king outlawed it. Europeans were obsessed with this practice.
The trade of body parts for medicinal purposes thrived, with executioners often stripping flesh, bones, blood, fat, and other remains to sell to eager buyers right after executions. Merchants sourced corpses from distant lands, and grave robbers exhumed bodies at night to supply physicians.
As bizarre—and unsettling—as it may seem, this gruesome practice had a philosophical foundation: alchemists believed consuming the body allowed one to absorb the soul's power and the fundamental essence of creation. Every remedy was marketed as a miraculous cure, each more horrifying than the last.
10. Gladiator Blood and Liver
In ancient Rome, the death of gladiators transformed the arena from a spectacle of bloodshed into a source of medicinal remedies. Romans were convinced that consuming the warm blood of a gladiator would grant them the fighter's strength and courage.
Epilepsy sufferers would gather around a defeated gladiator, drinking the 'living blood' directly from his wounds. Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician, proposed a bizarre pseudoscientific theory that the liver of a stag, killed by a weapon used to defeat a gladiator, possessed magical properties to cure epilepsy.
Soon, consuming the liver of a gladiator was believed to have comparable healing powers. After gladiatorial games were outlawed in A.D. 400, those seeking a cure turned to executions as a new source of blood.
9. Blood of a King and Other Criminals
The belief that epilepsy could be treated with the still-warm blood of the dead persisted into the late 1800s. In Scandinavia and Germany, crowds of epilepsy sufferers would use cups to collect blood from recently beheaded bodies at execution sites. One notable incident from 16th-century Germany describes an eager individual grabbing a corpse and drinking blood directly from its severed neck.
The practice wasn’t confined to the blood of ordinary criminals. On January 30, 1649, Charles I of England was executed for treason. Spectators surged forward to dip their hands in the king’s blood. It was believed that a monarch’s touch could heal the 'king’s evil,' a term for tuberculosis-related swollen lymph nodes, but his blood was considered even more potent. Following Charles I’s beheading, the resourceful executioner allegedly profited by selling blood-soaked sand and locks of the king’s hair.
8. The King’s Drops
While Charles I became a source of medicinal remedies, his grandson, Charles II, created his own. Known for his chemistry skills, Charles II purchased the formula for a well-known tincture called 'Goddard’s Drops' and produced it in his personal lab. Jonathan Goddard, the physician behind the invention, reportedly received a substantial sum of £6,000, and for nearly two centuries, the concoction was famously referred to as 'the King’s Drops.'
The recipe was appropriately repulsive: two pounds of hartshorn, two pounds of dried viper, two pounds of ivory, and five pounds of human skull. These ingredients were finely chopped and distilled into a liquid form. The human skull, considered the key component, served a spiritual purpose. Alchemists believed that a sudden, violent death trapped the soul within the remains, including the skull, and consuming it transferred the deceased’s life force to the user.
The King’s Drops’ reputation as a miracle cure for nervous disorders, seizures, and strokes is questionable. In reality, it could be lethal. Historical records indicate it caused the deaths of several notable individuals. For instance, English MP Sir Edward Walpole experienced severe convulsions after taking it, rather than relief. He was described as 'the saddest spectacle' as he succumbed to the tincture’s effects.
Its only medical benefit seemed to be as a stimulant. Distilled hartshorn produces ammonia, a key component in smelling salts. However, most of the time, the King’s Drops had little to no effect. On February 6, 1685, Charles II was given the tincture on his deathbed, but it failed to save him.
Despite its questionable efficacy, the King’s Drops remained popular among both the elite and the common people. It even featured as a medical recipe in the 1823 cookbook The Cook’s Oracle, which included instructions on distilling human skulls at home to treat children’s convulsions.
7. Skull’s Moss
The questionable healing properties of human skulls also included the mold or moss, known as usnea, that grew on unburied skulls. This substance was found in abundance on skulls left exposed on battlefields. Soldiers, who met violent deaths, were believed to retain their 'vitality' or life essence, which was thought to be absorbed into the skull moss under the influence of 'celestial orbs.'
Usnea was widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was ground into a powder and either inhaled to stop nosebleeds or ingested to treat various ailments, from epilepsy to menstrual issues. Sir Francis Bacon, often called the 'father of medicine,' recommended it as part of a salve to be applied to weapons. The theory was that treating the blade with the salve would heal the wounds it inflicted.
6. Distilled Brain Mash
In his 1651 work, The Art of Distillation, physician and alchemist John French detailed a particularly gruesome method for creating a brain tincture. French matter-of-factly outlined the steps for aspiring practitioners to follow.
“[T]ake the brains of a young man who died violently, along with the membranes, arteries, veins, nerves, and spinal cord,” and “crush them in a stone mortar until they form a paste.” This brain paste was then soaked in “spirit of wine” and left to ferment in horse manure for six months before being distilled into a clear liquid. French likely sourced his materials from his role as an army physician and from dissections performed at the Savoy Hospital, where he prepared this macabre concoction.
Similar to other corpse-based remedies, this was not a fleeting trend. References to its use appear consistently throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. An even more repulsive version from the 1730s involved blending human brains, hearts, and bladder stones with breast milk and warm blood.
5. Human Fat Ointment
During the 17th and 18th centuries, human fat became a lucrative commodity for executioners across Europe. In Paris, people would skip local apothecaries and queue at the scaffold to obtain their own jar of rendered human fat. Witnessing the dismemberment and extraction process ensured buyers they were getting the real product, not a counterfeit made from animal fat. This human grease was promoted as an effective pain reliever for conditions like arthritis, gout, and even breast cancer.
The elite also embraced this practice. Queen Elizabeth I applied ointments made from human fat to her face to smooth smallpox scars. An 18th-century recipe for such an ointment included a mix of human fat, beeswax, and turpentine—a potentially toxic combination. It’s likely that a similar concoction was used by the queen. This, combined with her use of lead-based cosmetics, may have contributed to her death in 1603, which some speculate was due to blood poisoning.
4. Sweat of a Dying Man
English physician George Thomson (c. 1619-1676) was renowned for utilizing every part of the human body for medicinal purposes. He prescribed urine for plague and recommended consuming human afterbirth to treat heavy menstrual bleeding. However, his strangest remedy was for hemorrhoids: rubbing the sweat of a dying man (likely induced by the terror of execution) on the affected area. If sweat wasn’t available, the touch of a severed hand from an executed criminal was said to make hemorrhoids vanish miraculously.
3. Red Tincture of 24-Year-Old Man
The use of 'mummy' as medicine eventually expanded to include the flesh of recently deceased individuals, prepared through a pseudo-mummification process. One peculiar variation was the 'red tincture,' which required a corpse of a specific age and complexion. Created by German physician Oswald Croll, this remedy gained popularity in London during the late 1600s. Croll’s instructions detailed selecting the body of a 'red man' (ruddy complexion), aged 24, who had been hanged, broken on a wheel, or stabbed, and left exposed to the air for a day and night in clear weather.
The flesh was cut into pieces, mixed with myrrh and aloe, then soaked in wine. It was left to dry in the sun for two days to absorb lunar influences, smoked, and finally distilled. The foul odor of the resulting liquid was masked with the pleasant scents of wine and elderflower.
2. Mummy Powder
Egyptian mummy became a sensation in Europe, hailed as a remedy for a wide range of ailments, including blood clots, poisoning, epilepsy, stomach ulcers, and fractures. It was available in various forms, such as 'treacle of mummy,' 'balsam of mummy,' tinctures, and its most popular version, mummy powder.
Known as mumia in European apothecaries, mummy powder became a medical staple from the 12th to the 20th century. Numerous early medical texts document its widespread use across the continent. The archives of the pharmaceutical giant Merck even mention mummy powder as a product.
It was thought that mummies were preserved using bitumen, which was believed to have healing properties. However, the flesh itself soon came to be seen as the source of health benefits. When authentic Egyptian mummies became scarce, a counterfeit trade emerged, with recently deceased bodies being sun-dried to mimic mummification.
Physicians strongly advocated for it, but French surgeon Ambroise Pare (c. 1510–1590) was a notable critic. He dismissed the effectiveness of mummy powder, along with another dubious remedy of the time, unicorn powder.
1. Honey Mummy
Mellified Man was essentially the process of transforming a human into candy. Chinese physician Li Shih-Chen described this practice in his 1597 book, Chinese Materia Medica. The method involved an elderly male volunteer who was bathed in honey and fed only honey until his body excreted nothing but honey. Upon his death, he was preserved in honey for 100 years.
After a century, the body would become rock-hard candy, used to treat broken or weakened bones. This honey mummy confection was reportedly available in Europe and China. While its exact prevalence is uncertain, it’s plausible given that Europeans consumed other forms of mummy for over 600 years.
