Prescription drugs: 1741

The Medicinal Herbs, in so large an Empire, are doubtless very numerous, but I shall only take notice of the most Remarkable and the most Valuable.

Rhubarb grows in great abundance, not only in the Province of Se tchuen, but also in the Mountains of Chensi. The Flowers resemble Tufts in the shape of a Bell, jagged at the Ends; the Leaves are long, and rough to the Touch. The Root is whitish within, while fresh, but when dryed it assumes the Coulour it has when it comes to us.

--From The general history of China--

The difference between their high priced prescription drugs and ours, is that ours work.

Also, ours aren't good in pie.

---

Modern medicine: 1350

In cases of diseases of the internal organs, where applied compounds will not work, he feeds the patient a narcotic potion to induce a deep sleep; then he cuts open the stomach and irrigates the affected areas with medicinal fluids. The patient feels not the slightest pain, and after the irrigation Hua Tuo sews up the wound with treated sutures and spreads salve over it.

--From the Romance of the Three Kingdoms--

Hundreds of years ago, no one could have imagined the miracles of modern medicine.

Absession: 1350

Xuande himself realized that he had said more than he ought and rose to excuse himself. Doing so, he noticed the extra weight around his middle. Suddenly he found tears welling in his eyes. When Xuande resumed his place, Liu Biao asked what was distressing him. "I used to spend all my time in the saddle," Xuande replied with a deep sigh. "Now it has been so long since I have been riding that I am growing thick around the waist...."

--From the Romance of the Three Kingdoms--

So many things to worry about, and your health sometimes suffers. I only wish Xuande had a chance to see this video:

Survival of the fittest: 1730

Oh happy unown'd youths, your limbs can bear
The scorching dog-star, and the winter's air,
While the rich infant, nurs'd with care and pain,
Thists with each heat, and coughs with ev'ry rain!

--From Trivia: or, The art of walking the streets of London--

I suppose if all the sick people in a population die off quickly, because no one can survive if the smallest things happens to them, a passerby might wonder at how healthy all the survivors seem. They might see the sickness-free society as "healthy", but in reality some sickness would be a sign of health.

Exercise: 1902

Soft cooked" cereals are swallowed without the necessary mastication, thus robbing the teeth of their NATURAL exercise, causing weakness and decay. Shredded Whole Wheat Biscuit, being crisp, compels vigorous mastication and causes the NATURAL flow of saliva which is necessary for NATURAL digestion.

--From The Delineator--

From now on, whenever I see the words "nature" or "natural" I will imagine them written in capital letters. They're supposed to be some magic words that make everything okay and good; at least it seems that way with many of the people who use them. (But these mushrooms I picked in the woods are NATURAL, they can't possible be bad for you!)

Mind altering substances: 1902

Miss Annie Avery, a student in Lanrk, Ont., writes: "I know I felt my ill health even more than if I had been engaged in any other work, as the confinement of school only increased my sickness and inability to study.

"Last year I was on the way to a general breakdown in health; I suffered from severe headaches, was becoming a confirmed dispeptic, nervous system broken down, and my condition went on from bad to worse until I was unable to study or even go to school.

"My parents were very anxious about me, as medicine did not help, and mother, hearing about Grape-Nuts, obtained some and I commenced to use it at once...

...I have gained 30 lbs. since using Grape-Nuts and am enjoying good physical and mental health."

--From The Delineator--

It bills itself as a diet cereal today, but back in the day Grape-Nuts was happy to advertise a 30 pound weight gain by one of its "users".

Designer babies: 1661

How well coloured and fair Children may be begotten.

Great is the affection of the mind, or force of imagination, but greatest of all when it exceeds: what is it you may not do almost by it? Women when they are with Child, when they desire most eagerly, think of it vehemently, they change the spirits within, and in them are painted forms of the things they thought of; those move the blood, whereupon in the softest matter of the Child they imprint the form...

--From Eighteen books of the secrets of art and nature--

Changing the child in the womb so they appeal to the superficial whims of parents: an issue that society never dealt with before the advent genetic engineering!

Jägerbomb: 1661

That the Woman shall abhore Copulation and the man shall desire it.

If a red Bull's pisle be poured and a crown weight be given the woman to drink in wine or broth, she will abhore to lye with a man. But the same powder mingled with fit Ingredients will provoke men that are dull and impotent to Vencrous Acts.

--From Eighteen books of the secrets of art and nature--

1. Look at the first sentence and consider the marriage problem this recipe was meant to help.

2. I can definitely see how sneaking bull's piss into a woman's drink, and then maybe telling her about it, would make her not want to sleep with a man; especially if "the man" was the one who gave her the drink.

3. Women back then probably wouldn't want to leave their drinks unattended, but for entirely different reasons than those of today.

4. O. Henry could do wonders with this premise, à la The Gift of the Magi.

Snow White: 1661

A sleeping Apple.

An Apple to make one sleep, is made of all these; Opium, Mandrake, juyce of Hemlock, Henbanefeed, Wine lees, to which must be added Musk, that by the scent it may provoke him that smells unto it. Make a Ball as big as a man may grasp in his hand, by often smelling to this it will cause him to shut his eyes and fall asleep: but it is but in vain to try to do this at certain hours; for men's temperaments vary: but he that shall go about it, may try it by such means, and all in vain. To hinder the danger of these things there is help enough: if you anoint their Temples, Nose, and Testicles with distilled Vinegar, or other things dissolved in Vinegar, that may drive away sleep and awaken the parties.

--From Eighteen books of the secrets of art and nature--

This is what Disney got wrong:

1. The apple isn't dunked in poison; it's made of poison.

2. The apple isn't supposed to be bitten, but smelled.

3. The antidote isn't "Love's First Kiss", but vinegar sprinkled on the crotch.

Herbal remedies: 1661

To prevent sleep.

There is a Berry brought out of Egypt cald Coffee, which being dried and beaten to pouder, and boyled in fair water, is much used among the Turks to make them lively and prevent sleep, which of late is become of great use in England.

--From Eighteen books of the secrets of art and nature--

Herbal remedies, bah! They never work.

It's all in your head: 1668

First then to speak of Feavers or Agues; the House-wife shall know those kinds thereof, which are most familiar and ordinary as the Quotidian or daily Ague, the Tertian or every other days ague, the Quartan or every third days ague, the Pestilent, which keepeth no order in his fits, but is more dangerous and mortal: And lastly, the accidentall Feaver, which proceedeth from the receit or some wound, or other painful Perturbation of the spirits.

--From The English House-wife--

Like the fever that comes every three days, sometimes the patterns we impose on the things we experience keep us from seeing what our real problems are. All we get out of it is an explanation; and for some people that's good enough.

Germ warfare: 1665

She began by degrees to slacken in her constant coming to prayers and to sacrament, in which she had been before that regular, almost to superstition. She put that on her ill health: for she fell into an ill habit of body, which some imputed to the effect of some of the duke's distempers communicated to her. A story was set about, and generally believed, that the earl of Southesk, that had married a daughter of duke Hamilton's, suspecting some familiarities between the duke and his wife, had taken a sure method to procure a disease to himself, which he communicated to his wife, and was by that means set round till it came to the duchess, who was so tainted with it, that it was the occasion of the death of all her children, except the two daughters, our two queens; and was believed the cause of an illness under which she languished long, and died so corrupted, that in dressing her body after her death, one of her breasts burst, being a mass of corruption. Lord Southesk was for some years not ill pleased to have this believed. It looked like a peculiar strain of revenge, with which he seemed much delighted.

--From History of his own Times--

 I believe they are talking about syphilis.

Epidemiology: 1773

This evening he disputed the truth of what is said, as to the people of St. Kilda catching cold whenever strangers come. 'How can there (said he) be a physical effect without a physical cause?' He added, laughing, 'the arrival of a ship full of strangers would kill them; for, if one stranger gives them one cold, two strangers must give them two colds; and so in proportion.' I wondered to hear him ridicule this, as he had praised M'Aulay for putting it in his book: saying, that it was manly in him to tell a fact, however strange, if he himself believed it'. He said, the evidence was not adequate to the improbability of the thing; that if a physician, rather disposed to be incredulous, should go to St. Kilda, and report the fact, then he would begin to look about him.

--From Boswell's Life of Johnson--

People who lived in an isolated community noticed they would catch colds when strangers came to visit. Johnson found the idea ridiculous, and later jokes that they must just not like the visitors they were getting.

It's easy to dismiss ideas when they go against a consensus. Fortunately, in science, people make decisions about truth based on falsifiable experiments and not consensus. That's why today we worry about germs instead of our humors.

Echinacea: 1599

Marg. A maid, and stuffed! there's goodly catching of cold.
Beat. O, God help me! God help me! how long have you professed apprehension?
Marg. Even since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?
Beat. It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap. By my troth, I am sick.
Marg. Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.
Hero. There thou prickest her with a thistle.

--From Much Ado About Nothing--

If you take Echinacea because people say it will fight a cold, why not try Carduus Benedictus? Shakespeare recommends it and he's better than "people", isn't he?

Germ warfare: 1790

When those who labour for their daily bread have the misfortune to catch cold, they cannot afford to lose a day or two, in order to keep themselves warm, and take a little medicine; by which means the disorder is often so aggravated as to confine them for a long time, or even to render them ever after unable to sustain hard labour. But even such of the labouring poor as can afford to take care of themselves, are often too hardy to do it; they affect to despise colds, and as long as they can crawl about, scorn to be confined by what they call a common cold. Hence it is, that colds destroy such numbers of mankind. Like an enemy despised, they gather strength from delay, till at length they become invincible.

--From Domestic Medicine--

Now I understand the phrase: "that which does not kill you, only makes you stronger." It's about colds. If you spread them to others and they die you have less competition.

[Note that the author isn't talking about the disease spreading to uninfected people from infected people who refuse to isolate themselves. That idea isn't mentioned in this medical treatise.]

Health advice: 1889

...Mutton, pork, ham, and even venison all dance to the same music. Spinach, turnip-tops and other greens were boiled and baptized with grease. It was hog meat, hog meat everywhere; hog meat for breakfast, hog meat for dinner, hog meat for supper, always fried and served up in its own grease. A caustic observer says that the devil of indigestion holds full sway in certain localities because the frying-pan has a firm grip on the affections of the people. He complains of seeing tall, gaunt men, sallow faces like corpses, having perfect satisfaction with the country, a lack of strong high ambition; women, gaunt, haggard, and hopeless looking, all trace of womanly beauty long since gone, every line of their faces speaking of want, privation, neglect of all sanitary laws, and unvaried monotony of unwholesome food; little children, flabby, yellow, pallid, with old men's faces. This is not malaria, he says, but the frying-pan.

--From Good Housekeeping--

To avoid fried foods is something your great-grandmother might have told you. Granted, she might have said it would make you waste away, but then people have been sure their food was killing them for some time.

Lactose intolerance: 1888

Some complain that they cannot drink milk without being "distressed by it." The most common reason why milk is not well borne is due to the fact that people drink it too quickly. If a glass of it is swallowed hastily it enters into the stomach and then forms in one solid, curdled mass, difficult of digestion. If, on the other hand, the same quantity is sipped, and three minutes at least are occupied in drinking it, then on reaching the stomach it is so divided, that when coagulated, as it must be by the gastric juice, while digestion is going on, instead of being in one hard, condensed mass upon the outside of which only the digestive fluids can act, it is more in the form of a sponge, and in and out of the entire bulk the gastric juice can play freely and perform its function.

--From Good housekeeping--

Can you imagine people watching a clock as they drink a glass of milk, making sue it takes them at least three minutes? And they'd still have intestinal problems.

Health food: 1888

Home should never be considered entirely furnished in its culinary department unless equipped with an ice-cream freezer, as with it many attractive and nutritious desserts may be prepared with but little trouble and expense. It matters not how heartily one may have dined, a dish of good ice-cream is always acceptable.

Nutrious ice-cream, full of the healthy fat and calories everyone needs.

It is a very common occurrence to hear a physician speak of the injurious effects of ice-cream, and at the same time admit that they result from the coloring and the flavoring extracts used in them.

But watch out for the artificial chemicals "modern" people add to their food.

--From Good housekeeping--

Fiji water: 1632

The water of Jordan hath beene transported to Venice in barrels, for that purity it hath; which will reserve unspoiled, both moneths and yeares, and the longer it is kept, it is the more fresher; and to drinke it, is an excellent remedy for the fever quartan or quotidian, being neare in vertue to the Wine of Libanon.

--From The totall discourse of the rare adventures...--

The modern version isn't allowed to make those sort of health claims, but they're kind of assumed.

Health advice: 1734

The tender Patients, by bathing in a Tub of cold Water; to which may be added a Pail of boiling Water; a general Method of so much bleeding and purging must be used before the cold bathing, as the Disease requires; and if you dip but twice in a Bathing, 'tis as much as the old Writers required...

--From The Gentleman's magazine--

They were obsessed with bleeding and cold baths, we're obsessed with food. And we clearly think too much about it, otherwise people wouldn't bother to report on it so much in the popular press (with so little information to back their stories up).

I mean, I remember when margarine was health food! Is it health food again? I have no idea.

Unless it's literally poison, I don't want to hear about it. That's my new policy.