MRT and dialysis, plaster cast and anesthesia were previously unknown to the people of Bavaria. Most of them never saw a single doctor in their lives, let alone one who was able to help. So people turned to advice. Partly with success, partly in vain.
Linguist Helmut Seidl recently read the book “Take care, live longer! Prevention and healing in old Bavaria”* released. It contains a great deal of advice and practices that people used to try to keep themselves healthy well into the 19th century. Because there were only doctors in the cities, and even their knowledge was often of little help. In any case, you only confided in the barber if you didn’t know what else to do.
Medicine in old Bavaria: Loud farts and deadly herbs
The common people therefore had to manage themselves and oriented themselves to numerous pieces of advice that had been handed down orally. These folk medicine recommendations were often based on a 12th-century didactic poem from the Salerno School of Medicine, which had spread throughout Europe.
Not all tips that can be traced back to it stand up to today’s knowledge. For example based “Let’s go to Katznjamma for a fresh measure of beer” on the advice of southern Italians that anyone who has drunk too much alcohol in the evening should drink the same drink again the next morning to fight the hangover. Today, water is clearly recommended in such cases.
The widespread bloodletting, often celebrated as a holiday and even popular during pregnancy, has long since ceased to meet medical standards. “These recommendations and practices should all be understood in light of the Four Juices Concept“, explains Seidl. According to this, there were four juices in the human body – blood, yellow and black bile and mucus. And an illness was the result of one of the juices being in excess or even spoiled. Accordingly, one sought to use this juice to get rid of.
Lots of curative and medical proverbs
According to Seidl, further basis of the health rules were superstition and religion. Example Viennese waltz: Many people and even doctors considered dancing per se to be unhealthy because it was believed that both the usual group dances and especially the Waltz dancing the lung addiction could arise. “And then there’s the religious point of view. People believed that waltzing led to unchastity because of the close physical contact, and Unchastity was one of the seven deadly sins“, describes Seidl. Accordingly, Catholic waltz dancers were not given absolution at confession.
Herbalism was also an important root of public health. “You should take off your hat before the elder and kneel before the juniper” – such proverbs show how much the helpful plants were appreciated. At the same time, people were well aware of the different effects. “Parsley helps the man on the horse, the woman under the ground” alludes to the fact that components of the herb were used by men as an aphrodisiac, but by women as an often fatal abortifacient. But there was also a lot of ignorance and superstition related to herbs: “Caraway, dill and rosemary let the spirits move on.”
In addition to nationwide valid health tips, there were also regional peculiarities. Especially Bavarian, for example, with headaches or migraines measuring. “This was usually done by a knowledgeable woman who measured the sufferer’s head with a tape and found that the head was not the right size because it was believed that the skull plates would split apart in the event of a headache,” says Seidl. As a linguist at the Universities of Nuremberg and Augsburg, he has been dealing with medical proverbs for decades. “And that’s why they tried to put the plates back together, and bandaged the head tightly and said a few blessings and healing sayings.”
Prevention and healing in old Bavaria
“Even specifically Bavarian was the”unblessed“This was understood to mean an attack of fever that you should get if you left the house without having wet yourself with water from the holy water cauldron,” Seidl lists. Luckily, some healing abilities were also attributed to the priests, and so the wisdom applied: “Confession makes easy” – and healthy. If nothing helped, the ailing could at least console himself with this proverb: “Fearing Doud is worse than dying!”
‘Take care, live longer!: Prevention and healing in old Bavaria’ by Helmut A. Seidl on Amazon
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