Our Most Popular Posts of 2013

'Indigestion', by George Cruikshank, ca. 1835. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
‘Indigestion’, by George Cruikshank, ca. 1835. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still suffering from the over-indulgence of the last few weeks–and it’s not even Twelfth Night yet! As usual, Wellcome Images offers up some historical cures.

Carter’s Little Liver Pills will help you to skip along the beach, feeling and looking fresh as a daisy!

Carter's Little Liver Pills for headaches, biliousness, torpid liver, constipation & indigestion, ca. 1910. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
Carter’s Little Liver Pills for headaches, biliousness, torpid liver, constipation & indigestion, ca. 1910. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

BiSoDol is useful in getting it all out…

Ephemera Collection, Bisodol Showcard, ca. 1930s. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
Ephemera Collection, Bisodol Showcard, ca. 1930s. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

Of course, we all make New Year’s resolutions to exercise more. Here is a handy home work-out kit from 1900.

The Sandell-Gray Figure Trainer, a  "unique apparatus ... for making the body graceful, erect and symmetrical by a few week's use. Attaches directly to the user's body". It also cured indigestion, constipation, stomach troubles, corpulence and spinal curvature (1900). Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
The Sandell-Gray Figure Trainer, a “unique apparatus … for making the body graceful, erect and symmetrical by a few week’s use. Attaches directly to the user’s body”. It also cured indigestion, constipation, stomach troubles, corpulence and spinal curvature (1900). Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

But if you can’t face all that hard work, there is always a stimulating electropathic belt to help steady your nerves, relieve constipation, cure obesity, aid manly vigour.

Magazine insert or leaflet advertising the therapeutic belts available at the Medical Battery Company Limited at 52 Oxford Street, London. They were supposed to invigorate the debilitated and cure: rheumatism, constipation, palpitation, neuralgia, nervousness, back pain, sciatica, lumbago, obesity, ladies' ailments (menstruation disorders) and impaired vitality (male impotence). The illustration shows a nurse presenting 2 belts to a man and woman sitting by a table with fruit and a bottle on it (1893). Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
Magazine insert or leaflet advertising the therapeutic belts available at the Medical Battery Company Limited (1893). Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

If none of these treatments appeal, perhaps you might instead prefer to distract yourself by checking out our top five posts from 2013.

5. Katherine Allen’s delightful “Tobacco Smoke Enemas” explores the medical significance of blowing smoke up one’s rear end.

4. Karin Leonhard and David Brafman offer some tips on “Dyeing Wool in Seventeenth-Century Germany“, with instructions for music and reflections on death included alongside the wool dyeing.

3. Laura Mitchell considers whether medieval healing charms were “Magic or Medicine“. Plus… evil eye!

2. I examine a modern cure-all, finding that coffee was “A Remedy Against the Plague“. Coffee: even more useful than we think.

1. And our most popular post of the year was Laurence Totelin’s “Recipe Fit for a King“, in which she considers King Attalus as a serious scholar who had a deep knowledge of poisons.

An interesting list that reveals much about the wide-ranging interests of our readers and contributors! Elaine Leong and I are looking forward to another fun year for Recipes Project in 2014.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Lisa Smith (January 2, 2014). Our Most Popular Posts of 2013. The Recipes Project. Retrieved December 3, 2024 from https://doi.org/10.58079/tcpa


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.