If you want to reassure yourself that now is a good time to be alive, take a look at the 1769 illustrations in the Bodleian Library ’s new edition of William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, which suggested its 18th-century readers should drink broths from sheep brain and put urine drops into their ears. There are also cow dung, oystershell and eel treatments.
The Scottish physician’s self-help manual could be found in coffee-houses, apothecary shops and private households.
His entries, from sensible advice on exercise to dangerous remedies like mercury, have been edited and selected by Woodstock author Melanie King, in a book called Can Onions Cure Earache?. She will be discusssing the remedies at the Blenheim Palace Literary Festival next Thursday at Woodstock Methodist Church.
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