Foul Facts Gallery: Terrible Tudors, Vile Victorians

Healed

Tudor doctors had some herbs that worked but may of their cures were just sad and silly superstitions. Here are a few of the wacky (but true) Tudor cures:

Got a headache? Then rub your forehead a rope that was used to hang a criminal. Suffer from rheumatism? Then wear the skin of a donkey. In pain with gout? Boil a red-haired dog in oil, add worms and the marrow from pig bones. Rub the mixture in. A painful liver? Drink a pint of ale every morning for a week - with nine head-lice drowned in it.

Are you bald? Use a shampoo made from the juice of crushed beetles. When the head is clean then rub in grease made from the fat of a dead fox. Are you a martyr to asthma? Swallow young frogs or live spiders, cover them in butter to help them slide down easier. Other crazy cures included powdered human skull, bone-marrow mixed with sweat, a stone that has killed a she-bear and fresh cream mixed with the blood of a black cat's tail.

Tasty treats! You'd soon be out of your sick bed if you were offered those poisonous panaceas.