Rabies

Dealing with a mediaeval rabid dog.

One mixed 10 drachms of powdered Ash-Coloured Ground Liver-Wort and 4 drachms of black pepper, ground to a powder. The powder was divided into six doses, one to be taken each morning in half a pint of warm milk. To be extra sure, a cold bath or a dip in a cold river was recommended. This was afterwards referred to as the pulvis antilyssus.

— Cases and Cures of the Hydrophobia, selected from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1807.

Here are some of the infallible (but nutty) remedies offered by the Gentleman's Magazine and elsewhere:

1735: primrose roots, plants called Star of the Earth, dry Mouse Ear and green Mouse Ear, with powdered crab's claw and either Venice or London Treacle.
— Cases and Cures of the Hydrophobia, selected from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1807, 4.

1737: ground-up male oyster shell in a pint of white wine. This was repeated for three days, all the while abstaining from butter and oily foods, but after that, the cure was complete.
— Cases and Cures of the Hydrophobia, selected from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1807, 5.

1760: J. Parsons proposed dosing the victim with salt and rubbing some into the wound, on the principle that salted meat did not putrefy.
— Cases and Cures of the Hydrophobia, selected from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1807, 39.

1764: it was stated that a patient in Padua had been cured of rabies by drinking three pints of vinegar.
— Cases and Cures of the Hydrophobia, selected from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1807, 48.

1790: If the patient should long continue weak, and subject to terrors, he may take half a drachm of the Peruvian bark thrice a-day.
— William Buchan, Domestic Medicine, 1790, 485.

An English clergyman in Rotterdam recommended covering the wound with fried egg-yolks on nine days, eating the rest of it each time. On later days, the wound was to be opened each time with a piece of firewood before it was dressed with egg-yolk.
— Cases and Cures of the Hydrophobia, selected from the Gentleman's Magazine, 1807, 58–59.

RADIUM CURES HYDROPHOBIA. Dr. Tizzoni, an eminent professor of the Bologna University, claims that radium, with which interesting experiments have already been made in connection with cancer research is an effective cure for hydrophobia, In the course of a lecture on Saturday before the local Scientific Academy Dr. Tizzoni stated that he had repeatedly injected rabbits with most violent hydrophobia virus, and afterwards subjected the animals to radium rays with the result that in every case a cure was effected within six days.
— The Border Morning Mail and Riverina Times (Albury), Tuesday 13 June 1905, 2.

 

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