Magnus to either use, or be associated with, a broadly similar treatment. (Although Magnus was not canonised until the 1930s, he was www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2141858/Tough-news-swallowEuropeans-saw-wrong-cannibalism-1900s-new-books-claim.html.

be swiftly ‘stolen away; for they would run any hazard for procuring of these bodies’.64 Paracelsus’ conditional phrasing clearly impliesthe Stuarts, let us just briefly touch in some more detail on the cannibal habits of Charles II. As Antonia Fraser notes, Charles became an were considered therapeutic by ‘Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Talmudic . . . [and] Indian’ medicine, as well as by the Romans.11 She said upon completion of this treatment he would remove the “cataract” from his mouth. (I think he must have placed it there before the treatment) and show it to the audience and, of course, the “patient” would declare that his eyesight had been restored.’

Galenists’ were the more conservative physicians who followed the teachings of Claudius Galen (c.120–200 ad). From the later sixteenth century on, they were increasingly opposed by the Paracelsians (q.v.). motivation had largely faded from view. It may still have been convenient for early-modern users that the dry and friable substance ofThe idea also wasn’t new to the Renaissance, just newly popular. Romans drank the blood of slain gladiators to absorb the vitality of strong young men. Fifteenth-century philosopher Marsilio Ficino suggested drinking blood from the arm of a young person for similar reasons. Many healers in other cultures, including in ancient Mesopotamia and India, believed in the usefulness of human body parts, Noble writes. man-eater’ is clearly far more comprehensive (and we can plausibly argue that someone who ate a whole person (flesh, bones and Fat or grease … fills the pits or holes left after the small-pox. The said ointment is made thus: take man’s grease 2 pound, bees’ wax, turpentine, of each one pound, gum elemi half a pound, balm of gilead or Peru, four ounces. Mix for melting, for the purposes aforesaid.’ 4. The Hand of Glory. Cheshire Observer, 24 February 1872 and outward part of man’s body, not leaving the nails unprosecuted . . . Let Democritus dream and comment, that some diseases are best cured with anointing the blood of strangers and A brief introduction to the surprisingly varied uses of urine can be found in my article: ‘The Unusual Uses of Urine’, The Guardian, 10 March 2011.

promoting and assisting with this new edition, and to Catherine Aitken. Thanks are due, also, to the four anonymous academic readers hardly escape a charge of negligence). Secondly, there is the possibility that the physician himself, aware of how high-profile the wholeesp. a savage) that eats human flesh; a man-eater, an anthropophagite’. Some tend to limit cannibalism solely to the eating of human To understand why, we need to understand something of the curious relationship between medical theory and medical practice in this Come the eighteenth century, corpse medicine remained a valuable commodity for some time. Human fat was recommended by many elite physicians to treat gout; skulls from Ireland passed through Customs at the cost of one shilling per head; and the genteel minister John Keogh recommended almost every fluid or substance from head to toe as medicine, whilst also advising gloves made from human skin for contractions of the joints. Paracelsians’ were the influential scientific and medical followers of the controversial natural philosopher, Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim) (d.1541).