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When Opium Was a Cure-All Remedy, and Other Unusual Historic Medical Cures

Khalid Elhassan April 10, 2025 16 min

Remedy - Flagellants thought that flogging themselves would ward off the plague — Flagellants thought that flogging themselves would ward off the plague. Pits Perilous

14. Rotten Syrup Every Day, to Keep the Plague Away

The Black Death treacle remedy called for rotten syrup: it had to be aged at least ten years to be effective. Reasoning that “if it tastes horrible it must be good“, doctors swore by the healing properties of rotten treacle. The old, sticky, and stinky syrup was believed to not only prevent plague in the first place, but to also cure those who became infected. Still, no matter how bad rancid treacle smelled, it was not as bad as another plague remedy: urine. Since ancient times, urine was collected for various uses, such as whitening cloth, developing and fixing dyes, and tanning leather. During the Black Death, many came to believe that urine had healing properties. So they soaked themselves in it. Plague victims were bathed in urine several times a day, in the belief that doing so would either cure them, or at least alleviate the symptoms.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.