Tussy Mussys
YAC Attack 147! Kill or Cure?
The causes of disease were not understood in medieval times and people tried lots of weird and wonderful ways to cure illnesses.
- One theory was that bad smells could make people ill….
Over the centuries people have tried lots of weird and wonderful ways to cure illnesses. True or False? Check out the ‘cures’ listed below. Some of them seem far too bizarre to possibly be true. What do you think?
- Bed bugs mixed with meat and beans are a cure for fever.
- Hot cinnamon and nutmeg mixed with the skull of a dead man (yuk!) is a cure for diarrhoea.
- Mustard smeared on the chest cures pneumonia.
- A bear’s right eye tied over a child’s cradle will prevent it being afraid of the dark.
- Walking seven times round a donkey cures whooping cough.
All of these ‘cures’ are true. The fever cure appeared in a Roman drug book called De Materia Medica (c.AD 64) by Pedanius Dioscorides. The diarrhoea cure using a dead man’s skull was prescribed by the chemist Robert Boyle in the 17th century.
Mustard plasters were used up to the 20th century to treat chest infections. Hanging a bear’s eye above a cradle to cure children’s fear of the dark was suggested in the Book of Sixty Animals written in the 13th century.
Walking around a donkey to cure whooping cough was an English folk remedy up to the 20th century. Donkey owners, who gave children rides on the beaches in the summer, followed whooping cough epidemics in the winter.
Tussy mussys were believed to be a way of protecting from diseases, particularly the plague.
ACTIVITY: What is a tussy mussy and how do you make one?
