Urine and Poop Were Used to Cure the Black Death
During the Black Death, many came to believe that urine had health benefits. So they soaked themselves in the stuff. Plague victims were bathed in urine several times a day, in the belief that it would either cure them, or at least alleviate the symptoms. Of course, it did no such thing – it just caused them to spend their final hours reeking of urine. However, urine did not cause them to stink anywhere near as bad as the next cure. The Black Death often caused pus-filled swellings, known as buboes, to erupt all over the skin. One treatment was to lance open the buboes to allow the disease to leave the body. So far, not so bad. Then a special potion was to be applied to the lanced buboes. A potion in which poo featured prominently.
The cuts in the plague victims’ bodies were slathered with a concoction of tree resin, white lily roots, and human excrement. The fetid paste was pushed and packed firmly into the open wounds, then tightly wrapped to keep the nauseating mixture inside. Another plague remedy was to kill Jewish people. Jews were often persecuted by Christians, who accused them of everything from killing Jesus to murdering Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals. When the Black Death erupted, many Christians blamed the Jews, who were accused of deliberately poisoning wells to cause the plague. Some Jewish innocents were tortured into confessing that they had poisoned the wells. The belief in Jewish culpability was further buttressed by the observation that the plague did not strike Jews as often as it did Christians. Which in reality, was a function of Jews practicing better hygiene.
