Science Vs - Snake Bite Cures: Weasels, Pigeons, Pee

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

Venomous snakes entranced medieval Europe. And although bites were rare, this didn’t stop 14th century doctors from using everything but the kitchen sink to make snake bite treatments. We’re talking weasels, birds — even the pee of a young man. So was it all for snakes and giggles? Or is there something we’re missing in our treatments today? We speak to medieval animal expert Dr. Kathleen Walker-Meikle.  Check out the transcript here: https://bit.ly/3fqzNJp This episode was produced by Taylor White with help from Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler, Meryl Horn, Michelle Dang and Nick DelRose. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Haley Shaw, Peter Leonard, Marcus Bagala, Emma Munger, and Bobby Lord. And special thanks to the Zukerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Versus from Gimlet. Last week, we looked at the future of treating snakebites. But for today's little episode, we're going back in time to medieval Europe, where doctors were trying to treat snakebites in the bizarrest of ways. So let's paint a picture here. There's big castles around, peasants working the land, while the local aristocracy pranced around with pets like squirrels. They were very popular at the time

and you would keep them on little leashes with little collars and you would take your squirrel out for walks. Oh, you must have fun at work. The one having fun at work is Kathleen Walker-Meagle from King's College, London. She studies animals in the Middle Ages. And several years ago, she was reading through these super old texts from around the 1300s, and she kept noticing one animal

coming up again and again. Not squirrels, but snakes. In so many of these medical texts, I would see recipe after recipe of what to do when you've been bitten by a venomous snake. And this was weird because these nerds went into a ton of detail, page after page, about venomous snake bites. And a lot of them were living in Western Europe, which is not exactly snake central. Your chances of getting bitten by a venomous snake are very rare. It's sort of an obsession almost, it sounds like. It is.

There's almost a luridness in the material. It's rather exciting if you're talking about, and here and then there's the viper and then there's the basilisk. You can almost see it's almost an escape. But, of course, some people in Western Europe at the time were bitten by scary snakes. So Kathleen wanted to know what the dickens would happen if that was you.

Like, what would these European doctors do to help? And one of the weirdest treatments that she came across involved a furry friend, a weasel. So if you got bit by a snake and there was a weasel handy, so how exactly would this work? You would just split a weasel in half and apply it on the bite. What do you mean split a weasel in half? As in from the stomach across or down the head? From head to sort of down to the bottom and you are just applying then the belly of your weasel

onto the bite. By the way, if you don't have a weasel on hand, don't worry. Then you might go and apply your chickens or your pigeons. You'd do the same thing. Split the birdies open and whack them on the snake bite. The idea here is that once you've got those innards on the wound, the body, the sucks up, the venom, if you weren't splitting weasels or chickens, some medieval doctors would use other stuff, like taking the poo from birds and goats and then slathering it on the wound. But you could also try fish gills or crushed ants,

perhaps even urine, specifically a young man's. Just mix it with some calf's fat and butter and on the wound it goes. As the patient in all this, how do you think you would feel with all these like, all right, this didn't work, bring out the pigeons, bring out the pigeons. Well, it's a case of perhaps you're just thinking I'm in the best medical care, so you just keep on going. And while splitting pigeons might have gone the way of the dodo in Western Europe, Kathleen actually came across some treatments that people are still doing today, like sucking venom out of a wound and then spitting it out. They were doing this in medieval times, although back in the 14th century. You as the physician didn't want to do it out. They were doing this in medieval times, although back in the 14th century.

You as the physician didn't want to do it yourself. Instead, what you needed to do was go and find yourself a nice poor person. They were better at sucking out venom? It was more a case of, I want somebody else to do this, not me. It might be dangerous. The bigger issue is that it probably doesn't work anyway. Once the venom gets in there, studies have found that most of it can't be sucked out. Plus, putting your grubby mouth on someone's open wound isn't exactly the gold standard of medicine. So, trying to suck out the venom? Not recommended at all. And what about the other medieval treatments that Kathleen dug up? You know, slicing up the weasel, plopping on the pigeon poo?

Well, it turns out that the nerds holding the purse strings are getting in the way of the real work that needs to be done here. Well, I don't know if I would be able to get a research grant that would allow me to go around sort of with a pile of snakes and then perhaps a pile of chickens. And a very sharp axe as well you'll need. That's Science Versus. And if you want to know about treatments that do work,

check out our episode from last week on snake bites and the search for a universal antivenom. This episode was produced by Taylor White and the Science Versus team. Find full credits in our show notes. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.