A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities by J.C. McKeown
Being a bit of a fusspot about what I read (and bearing in mind that I’ll *never* have enough time in my life to read all the books I want to) I tend to be a little careful about review books, only requesting or reading ones that I think I’ll like. However, occasionally an unexpected volume pops through my door and that happened recently with this lovely new hardback from Oxford University Press. I was a bit flummoxed at first, but when I started exploring the content I found that it was quite a little treasure! “A Cabinet…” is an anthology; compiled by classicist J.C. McKeown, it draws from a wide range of texts from the early days of medicine and presents them in user-friendly chunks organised by categories, ready for the casual and untrained reader to enjoy. The results, as they say, are fascinating!
I should say up front that I’m a poor student of the true Classics, never having got back quite as far as Ancient Greece and Rome in my reading. I know the names, but not the content, so I approached the book as a complete novice. Interestingly, however, many of the texts here have never been translated into English before, so McKeown is charting new territory. He’s previously produced other “Cabinet of…” books, cover Roman and Greek Curiosities generally and on the evidence of the Medical book they should make good reading.
As McKeown points out in his erudite introduction, the science of medicine has changed dramatically since its early days; much of what the ancients took for granted, such as links to religion and magic, are dismissed out of hand nowadays (well – in professional circles, anyway!). Used as we are nowadays to constant medical innovation, back in the classical past medicine was a fairly unchanging art, with those practicing drawing on their forebears rather than innovating. And what we would nowadays call ‘quack remedies’ were treated with all seriousness; some of them sound remarkably grim, one of the milder examples being binding a horse’s teeth around a child’s neck to cure teething pains…
McKeown is upfront about the reasons he’s chosen many of the extracts; he sets out to entertain the modern reader and certainly he did this one! I thought it would be fun to share a few favourite quotes from this eminently dippable book; it’s an ideal gift for any medic or hypochondriac you might know, or anyone who likes to read about the horrors and peculiarities of medicine of the past!
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From the section ‘Sex Matters’:
“Sexual intercourse gives relief to a man who has been bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion, but it harms the woman who is his partner.” Pliny
“Uninhibited fornication cures dysentery.” Hippocrates
From the section ‘Women and Children’:
” If a nursing infant has a fever and you lay him down to sleep surrounded by cucumbers of the same length as the child, he will be cured immediately, since all the heat will be drawn off from him into the cucumbers.” Anonymous Byzantine
“Moistening a child’s skull with a cold sponge and then tying a frog to it belly up is a very effective treatment for heatstroke.” Pliny (what *was* he thinking??)
From the section ‘Preventative Medicine’:
A sick person is beyond all hope of recovery if his doctor urges him to live with no regard for moderation.” Seneca
From the section ‘Treatment and Cures’:
‘Eating boiled viper meat makes the eyesight keener, tones up the nervous system, and checks scrofulous swellings.’ Dioscorides
(I could go on and quote the preparation instructions but as a vegetarian it makes me a bit queasy…)
Annabel (gaskella)
Mar 12, 2017 @ 11:48:37
This book is lurking in my review pile too. I’m glad it’s entertaining – although I am reminded of the Horrible Histories sketches where historical medics run amok in modern hospitals.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 12, 2017 @ 12:42:58
It’s great fun, though a bit eeeewwww at times…. 🙂
BookerTalk
Mar 12, 2017 @ 16:46:22
many of these ancient remedies call for a lot more dexterity than I have. To follow “Anonymous Byzantine”‘s cure I’d have to take a tape measure when I went to the grocers shop – can you imagine any grocer letting me run riot through his display trying to find the perfect length? As for Pliny, by the time I’d find a frog and managed to tie it down the patient would most likely be dead
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 12, 2017 @ 18:45:37
I know! Impractical or what! But very entertaining…
heavenali
Mar 12, 2017 @ 21:55:16
What an unusual and fascinating book. Some of those ancient remedies are not for the feint hearted, I imagine some fairly yucky descriptions.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 13, 2017 @ 10:18:52
I must admit there were a few points where I looked away – I’m not good on medical stuff – but it *was* very entertaining!
Resh Susan @ The Book Satchel
Mar 13, 2017 @ 01:44:12
This is a curious book indeed. I laughed out loud with some of the passages you selected. The cure for the person bitten by a snake is hilarious. Haha. Would he/she even be thinking about sex after a bite?
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 13, 2017 @ 10:18:15
Well, exactly! Some of the ideas are so bizarre – but very funny!
Liz Dexter
Mar 13, 2017 @ 07:50:57
An unexpected joy indeed, though not one for me. I guess cucumbers and frogs are quite cold so they were on the right tracks, or next to them …
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 13, 2017 @ 10:17:47
I suppose so – but there must be better ways to cool someone down… Makes me very glad we have modern medicine!!
anna amundsen
Mar 13, 2017 @ 12:09:28
The quotes are hilariously amusing! What a book. I’ll keep it in mind as a gift idea!
Sarah
Mar 13, 2017 @ 13:19:19
Hilarious! My Mum is a retired doc so I shall have to by her a copy of this for her birthday – it’ll give her a good laugh!
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 13, 2017 @ 13:33:35
I think it might make her hair stand on end!!
buriedinprint
Mar 13, 2017 @ 16:05:15
A flummoxed fusspot: I have quite the picture of you standing on the other side of your mail-slot now. Am so relieved that it evolved into your becoming a fascinated fusspot. What would we do without the occasional bookish wander into less-familiar reading territory? We would be even more, maybe impossibly, fussypotty.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 13, 2017 @ 16:17:26
I can be *soooo* pernickity when it comes to books! And yes, it’s good to be pushed out of your usual comfort zone for a change – certainly for something as entertaining as this!
Lady Fancifull
Mar 14, 2017 @ 07:18:22
Oh this sounds wonderful! But I’m puzzled. Either babies must have been very small, or cucumbers remarkably huge, in classical times! I have never seen an infant sized cucumber. Or a cucumber sized infant. Alas, modern cucumbers have clearly shrunk to a shadow of their former classical greatness.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Mar 14, 2017 @ 09:19:04
Good point! I know we have better nutrition and all that nowadays, but are babies *really* that much bigger? Maybe they had genetically altered cucumbers back in the day…
The Horrible History of Historical Hospitals – Annabookbel
Apr 03, 2017 @ 05:00:41