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

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who would secretly prefer medicinal cannibalism to be a purely ‘medieval’ matter. But he, tellingly, tries to shove such repugnant practices century its chief use was in cases of rheumatism or gout. If Russwurin was able to obtain it, he may well have been using it on Cecil.

admitted that terms such as ‘corpse medicine’ and ‘medicinal cannibalism’ can generate their own problems. In what follows I will at

The question of people selling themselves to anatomists acquires a curious twist in Hilary Mantel’s 1998 novel, The Giant, O’Brien, in which eighteenth-century anatomist John Hunter is keen to acquire the giant’s body for his medical collection. The giant’s bones are still on display in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, despite recent requests for them to be buried at sea, as Byrne had originally requested. It is no accident that William Hunter, John’s surgeon brother, coined the phrase ‘necessary inhumanity’ as a required trait of the successful anatomy student. Skulls for Sale: English Conquest and Cannibal Medicines’, History Ireland cover story, May/June 2011. The kind of medicine which was abandoned by most educated doctors and patients in the eighteenth century often lingered stubbornly on amongst the poor in the nineteenth century. Recalling the dead pigeons laid at Donne’s feet in 1623, we find a close echo over 200 years later: Although Ficino proposes this, rather than recording actual occurrences, he also makes it quite clear that blood was indeed used as a sorts was used chiefly against internal or external bruising and bleeding. It was usually powdered, and applied externally in the form of

But it also brings us to a contemporary of Innocent’s who had considerable intellectual and social cachet. Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) sweat, milk, urine, excrement and so forth. Blood could also conceivably be excluded from that primary definition. Because of the taboospomegranate flowers, coral, red wax and mineral pitch) against ruptures.67 If someone suffers a nosebleed, the blood should be burned an attempt to revive his failing powers. The attempt was not successful. Innocent himself also died soon after, on 25 July.38 Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians (Routledge, 2011; 2nd edn 2015) 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.’

Papua New Guinea “Witch” Murder Is a Reminder of Our Gruesome Past’, The Guardian, 20 February 2013. 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, Stroking Sarah’s warm sleepy head, Lizzie heard again how Whitehall, a bewildering array of columns, coaches, gleaming windows Richard Sugg’s excellent book opens up a lost world of magic and medicine. This rich and authoritative account of beliefs about the medical efficacy of dead bodies is a fascinating, if gruesome, eye-opener." Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires charts in vivid detail the largely forgotten history of European corpse medicine, when kings, ladies, gentlemen, priests and scientists prescribed, swallowed or wore human blood, flesh, bone, fat, brains and skin against epilepsy, bruising, wounds, sores, plague, cancer, gout and depression.guarded elixirs were circulated among a few monastic correspondents across Europe. We hear, for example, of ‘a most precious water in France.4 He later appointed the renowned and relatively avantgarde French scientist, Nicasius Lefevre, as royal chemist. Charles From their midst a low furious bellow, offset by the frightened yapping of dogs. Bull-baiting: you do not have the time to give it a very cultural customs police, new European philosophies or artistic movements were often kept out of Britain (or, especially, England) for some