Do you have sores, bruise wounds, or gout? Fret not, for human flesh shall cure you all. Not effective enough? It can also be used for epilepsy, plague, cancer, and even your seasonal depression episodes. This might sound like a nonsensical joke founded in insensitiveness yet this is exactly what medieval to early modern British doctors’ prescriptions looked like.
Richard Sugg, in the second edition of his book ‘Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires’, explores the guttural lanes of ancient Europe which is filled with blood stains and an occasional cannibal delight that have been traversed by British royals and rich merchants alike.
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‘Not A Savage’ Practice, But Medicinal Cannibalism Of Royal Family
While the high-nosed European aristocrats might have remarked the cannibal practices of The New World to have been barbaric and declared the practitioners to be savages, that certainly didn’t apply when the same practice was followed well into the 18th-century Old World scenario. This is evident in how the author himself quotes, “Ranging from the execution scaffolds of Germany and Scandinavia, through the courts and laboratories of Italy, France and Britain, to the battlefields of Holland and Ireland, and on to the tribal man-eating of the Americas, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires argues that the real cannibals were in fact the Europeans.”
The term chosen to sugarcoat the practice was ‘Medicinal Cannibalism’. After all, what is a few human remains as long as it cures the deadly feared plaque? Mummy remains were dried and ground into powder to be consumed orally, human blood was taken in fresh or dried form which was claimed could cure epilepsy, human fat was utilized into ointments and plasters for clinical use, and even skulls were predominantly used, being so famous as to being sold as whole in London pharmacies.
According to an article on Medium by the author, “James I refused corpse medicine; Charles II made his own corpse medicine; and Charles I was made into corpse medicine.” Even monarchs of the high-born society weren’t spared of this pseudo-medicinal frenzy, some became the victims while some were the perpetrators.
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Possible Effects On The Social And Cultural Aspects
When looking at how well embedded was the practice of consuming human flesh and blood, suddenly one is tempted to think just how much fictional are the classical characters like Count Dracula. After all, it didn’t take an immortal cold-blooded creature to gulp a chalice of blood in medieval Europe.
Many more folklore characters like the Welsh Witch who like to consume little children like the one in Hansel and Gretel and the cannibal antagonist Sweeney Todd of the play ‘The String Of Pearls’ borrow from this tradition.
In contemporary society, we might not consume pills named Tyler’s tibia but the obsession with cannibalism is still evident in how well series like ‘Dahmer’ and ‘Hannibal’ perform. After all, the fascination with the concept of consuming one’s own kind is one that is primal and more ancient than one might think.
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