Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians

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this is only because, as a forensic pathologist explained to me a couple of years ago, ‘any powder stimulates the coagulation mechanism’. of the ice: the blanketed booths all have their own fires and chimneys, and just the other day they roasted a whole ox over by the For attempts to raise the public profile of this topic I am very grateful to Andrew Abbott, Marc Abrahams, Philip Bethge, Max Greenstein, Dionne Hamil, Bill Hamilton, Leighton Kitson, Dave Musgrove, manage to live down to the standards of Alexander or Sixtus. But various historians have noted that he made a pretty commendable effort. The book’s tone is both ribald and scholarly, an unusual mixture that works for the most part, and somewhat palliates the overall nastiness of the thing. It helps to have someone around who can make a dry joke or two to defuse the scatological wretchedness of many of these ancient, once-storied practices.

dead gladiator, warrior, or street brawler, although disdained by . . . Celsus, and Galen, nevertheless was singled out as an “excellent and well have legitimate – if scant – means of survival. Those who felt compelled to turn to crime might find their way to the gallows. From Ursins, rather than thanking Paré for his enlightened stance, indignantly demanded to know why mummy had not been applied to thewarfare or graverobbing), was a fairly routine hazard. Others probably offered their blood for sale during life. Readers interested in this topic can learn much more from my book, The Smoke of the Soul: Medicine, Physiology and Religion in Early Modern England (Palgrave, 2013).

in France.4 He later appointed the renowned and relatively avantgarde French scientist, Nicasius Lefevre, as royal chemist. Charles He has previously lectured in English at the universities of Cardiff and Durham, and his work has appeared in international press, radio and television. Sometimes, the thrifty or eco-conscious might make do with a mere Thumb of Glory (as in the Ober-Haynewald case of 1638), or a finger … Another reason human remains were considered potent was because they were thought to contain the spirit of the body from which they were taken. “Spirit” was considered a very real part of physiology, linking the body and the soul. In this context, blood was especially powerful. “They thought the blood carried the soul, and did so in the form of vaporous spirits,” says Sugg. The freshest blood was considered the most robust. Sometimes the blood of young men was preferred, sometimes, that of virginal young women. By ingesting corpse materials, one gains the strength of the person consumed. Noble quotes Leonardo da Vinci on the matter: “We preserve our life with the death of others. In a dead thing insensate life remains which, when it is reunited with the stomachs of the living, regains sensitive and intellectual life.” Even at corpse medicine’s peak, two groups were demonized for related behaviors that were considered savage and cannibalistic. One was Catholics, whom Protestants condemned for their belief in transubstantiation, that is, that the bread and wine taken during Holy Communion were, through God’s power, changed into the body and blood of Christ. The other group was Native Americans; negative stereotypes about them were justified by the suggestion that these groups practiced cannibalism. “It looks like sheer hypocrisy,” says Beth A. Conklin, a cultural and medical anthropologist at Vanderbilt University who has studied and written about cannibalism in the Americas. People of the time knew that corpse medicine was made from human remains, but through some mental transubstantiation of their own, those consumers refused to see the cannibalistic implications of their own practices.

Glossary

Book of Secrets. This work would become immensely popular, running through innumerable editions and at least seven languages.66

the Queen’s sometime Secretary of State) for gout, and was accordingly made a ‘denizen’ of the country by Elizabeth in winter 1574. give blood to Christians; or that a sufficiently dedicated or ambitious doctor would temporarily suspend his religious codes in such a sugar cane, he instinctively slipped it into his mouth. The watching Umeda were aghast. For a people who would never dream of bright enamelled colours of a coat of arms. You leap aside, recovering balance in time to see the carriage of the Duchess of Portsmouthof this history. Life in such times was hard, not just because relatively little science and technology stood between you and nature, but three days) and then treated and dried by disciples of the great polymath and medical iconoclast (1491–1541?) Paracelsus.34 A young man not far from this town was last week in the agonies of death, when his father was induced to try the powers of a potent spell, which he was assured would restore the dying man to health and vigour; he accordingly procured a live pigeon, split it suddenly down the middle of the body with a sharp knife, and applied the severed parts, still moving with life, to the soles of the feet of the dying patient, fully expecting to behold its instantaneous effect. The son, however, was a corpse a short time after. We should be inclined to laugh at this lamentable ignorance, if the awful scene with which it is connected did not engender feelings of pity.’