Castle Quest - Reply to Topic

Forum:	Medieval Life And Culture
Topic:	herbalists and apothecaries

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T O P I C R E V I E W
Dorothy Davies I have a foul cough at the moment and wondered what sort of possett or concoction medieval people would have taken to cure this condition, considering how damp and cold their homes were, especially castles, which cannot have been warm places.
Maria Hot salt on your chest, hot tea (mint), vinegar friction if one had fever.Also... hm... not sure about English word... something like little glasses (like the ones you drink from, not the ones you wear) were put on the pacient's back and sucked the skin in. I'm not sure how efective this was, but my grandmother still uses something like this. It might not be very medieval.
Dorothy Davies thanks for that. The 'cupping' you mentioned I think is old, but still used, Gwyneth Paltrow was photographed with 'rings' on her back recently, but then she was daft enough to wear a backless dress after she had the treatment!
I am a spiritualist and am 'writing' a book on behalf of someone who lived in a castle in medieval times. I asked him this morning what was in his possett and he said 'I don't know, possibly henbane and belladonna ... ' which wasn't the answer I was seeking! So thanks for the help.
Peter Just back of hol's so catching up with a few posts.
One herb that was used was 'coltsfoot'. You can still buy coltsfoot toffee today.
The back of the leave was scrapped and soaked in honey and used as tisane.
Will dig out a bit more for you (no pun intended).
Peter
Peter Just going through my stuff and found this shortish one for you;
To helpe a short breath
Take the roots of Emula campana made cleane & cutt in peeces, of yssoppe and penyryoll, and also of good scraped liquoris of each 2 handfull of gyll of honey and pounde of great reasinges without theare stones, boyle them altogether in a gallon of faire water untill yt come to a bottell scouring yt cleane, then strayne yt and keepe yt of this drinke take a good draught somethinge warmed in the mornings, another draught an howre after dinner, another like draught last at nyght continuynge this 6 or 7 dayes and yt will helpe.
Pretty clear I'd say!
Peter
Dorothy Davies many thanks, Peter, this is a great help.
The person I am writing about took the stuff but, being a small boy at the time, had no idea what it was.
Hope you enjoyed the holiday!
Dorothy Davies
it has just occurred to me that the historians who write biographies have it relatively easy, they can skip whole sections of someone's life and not worry about detail, but when you are writing the autobiography, the fact they could not run jump skip and play due to chronic coughing fits does matter and that is the reason for questions, what did his nurse give him for the condition and so on. The biography I have here skips the first 7 years of his life (Richard Plantagenet - III of England) and goes straight to the time when his father was killed. My book starts when he is learning to walk in Fotheringhay castle and the formative years before that big happening. It's very different and very detailed, and includes stuff no historian has ever discovered and certainly that I would not make up, even though writing is my full time occupation.
Castle Quest has proved to be wonderful, thank you all so much. I have a line of monarchs queueing for their books to be written, only a daft spiritualist like me would say yes to such a major task, and there will doubtless be questions raised by all of them. But the medieval research will take me into the Tudors, which is good.
Peter I think you are doing something, that like you say, many would balk at.
It takes real 'heavy' reasearch for that type of thing. I have a couple of projects of my own, which I started off with, say, 6-month deadline.
What a silly boy I was.
Going too take me years.
Because no-one else has done much on the subjects at all. And if they have, finding that information is almost as hard as writing about it.
Maybe one day!
Peter