Tippermalloch’s Receipts, or The Poor Man’s Physician was a popular self-help book in early 1700s Scotland. Here’s some highlights from 6 chapters.
CW: gross and often cruel medicine
DEAFNESS/EAR PAIN CURES
a fig turned inside out, or bacon, or one’s own urine inserted into the ear. Have a good sneeze. Milk, “squirted into the ear, from the breast” “Ants’ eggs and onion juice dropt in doth cure the oldest deafness”
NOSEBLEEDS
Suction cups applied to feet. Wiggling the little finger on the side if the bleed. Icy water thrown in face at random intervals. Tie a bean/coin to bridge of nose. Cold vinegar on the scrotum. Nettles on forehead. Mints in both nostrils.
EYE PROBLEMS
Glaucoma? pour on hot pigeons blood. Bloodshot? Pigeon blood, or egg yolks and wine mix. Jaundiced? Pour on vinegar. Inflamed or sore eyes? Apply roast apple, or goat meat, or tobacco butter. All work better if you dab nettle juice on your temples.
KIDNEYS/BLADDER ETC.
Kidney or bladder stones: fried onions smeared on urethra, or open veins in anus, or eat as much sugar as you can, or drink burnt eggshells in turpentine. Inject warm milk directly into bladder for the pain. Eat hazelnuts before you eat meat.
FOR PISSING
Too much/involuntary? Drink burnt hare brains and testicles, or it’s dung, or burnt snail shells, or powdered burnt mice. Can’t piss? Apply beaten radishes, or fried onions, or raw onions. “Outwardly a cow-turd does wonders” Pissing blood? Wear lead plates in pants.
WOMEN’S DISEASES
Heavy periods? Drink nettle juice. Apply nettle poultice or sponge soaked in vinegar to “the Privaties”, or stand over a pan of boiling vinegar. “Scare” a prolapsed uterus “back up” using mice or frogs, or brandish a hot iron or foul-smelling material.
I’ll definitely do another round of Tippermalloch Receipts in the future, but you can read the whole thing here: https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-2761887R-bk…
