Crazy Cures: I'm Glad I Didn't Have Toothache in the 1400s

Praise the Lord for modern medicine - and not having toothache 600 years ago.

A Middle English remedy for toothache in the 1400s

”Tak a rauenes turde and put hit in þe holewe toght bot furst colore hit with þe jus of peletur of spayne þat þe seke knowe noht what hit be”
Which translates in modern English as : “Take a raven’s poo and put it in the hollow tooth but first dye it with the sap of the plant pellitory of Spain so that the sick person does not know what it is.”

What were they thinking?

This remedy occurs in several late medieval remedy books. Such books may have been used by professional physicians or in domestic contexts by family members wanting to heal one another.

The plant pellitory of Spain, also known as Anacyclus pyrethrum, has long been associated with the treatment of toothache and is still used a lot in Ayurvedic medicine today. The plant is a pesticide and has been found in some recent studies to have antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory powers. It may well have helped ease tooth pain. It is ironic, then, that the plant is used in this recipe as a mere disguise.

The author of the remedy suggests that it is the raven poo that will really help the tooth. Aside from making the tooth level again, the raven faeces would not have had any medical benefit....and may well have made the patient more ill!

By Dr Hannah Bower, a leading medieval literature specialist at the University of Cambridge