11/20/2005

The Sunday Telegraph

By Dr James LeFanu

Medicine being a forward-looking, progressive enterprise, it pays little heed to the traditional remedies of the past, which being "unscientific'' are of historical interest only. The "alternative'' brigade tend to take the contrary view, claiming it is precisely because the Chinese, for example, have been practicing acupuncture for thousands of years that we can have confidence in its efficacy.

It is of interest then with the current fascination with all things Roman that their medical practices could substantiate either view. Most Roman remedies - certainly those recorded by Pliny - are so bizarre it is difficult to believe anyone could have taken them seriously at the time. Typical of his advice is to women after childbirth: that they should rub their breasts with a mixture of sow's blood, goose grease and spider's web to prevent them becoming engorged, apply a poultice of partridge egg ash and wax to keep them firm, while "an earthworm drunk with honey will stimulate the flow of milk''.

But the recent reissue of the most popular medical treatise of the ancient world, the Materia Medica by the learned physician Pedanius Dioscorides, reveals a profound knowledge of many highly specific natural remedies long forgotten and only recently rediscovered in the West. These include the natural antidepressant St John's Wort, which he commends "for it expels choleric excrements'', and the very valuable aloe vera for the treatment of wounds sustained in battle.

And the Romans had, of course, olive oil to strengthen the nails, soften the skin and ease aching muscles and tired feet.

Perhaps, speculates a classical scholar writing in The Lancet, its regular application after bathing might explain why athlete's foot seems to have been unknown in the ancient world, despite the enthusiasm for public baths that would certainly have spread the fungus around. Being a lifelong sufferer himself, he tested his theory by applying a couple of drops between the toes every day. The athlete's foot vanished, never to return. And that is very useful to know.