ADDENDA


Object obscura: Herbal remedies


THIS medicine chest of herbal remedies produced in Italy around 1875 is attributed to Cesare Mattei, an Italian count with an interest in homeopathy. Mattei believed that fermented plants gave off “electrical” energy and that every illness had a cure provided in the vegetable kingdom by God. He began to developed his system from 1849 with the ingredients remaining a secret. The vial labelled “Canceroso 5” was used for bruises, cancers and hair loss among other conditions. Mattei’s system was popular but mostly dismissed by the medical profession as quackery.


Source: Science Museum


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From the archives: Cancer dreams


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SOMETIMES the quackery of a century ago seems more than a little familiar today. Consider a case from the year 1900 of an inquest held at Mirfield Memorial Hospital into the death of Annie Taylor, the wife of a local pub landlord. Mrs Taylor died from breast cancer and had been treated by an unqualified practitioner named Benjamin Balme, who described himself as a medical herbalist. Balme stated to the coroner that Mrs Taylor consulted him and his wife at their house – and that Mrs Balme had diagnosed the cancerous tumour while in a hypnotic sleep. She advised that it was possible to “scale” the cancer away and they sold Mrs Taylor medicine and an ointment to rub on her breast. Weekly hypnotic sessions followed where Mrs Balme


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ACROSS 1. Sloughing of necrotic inflammatory tissue (10)


8. Shock lung (acronym) (4) 9. Cosmetic dental devices (7) 11. One of three germ layers in an animal embryo (8)


12. Protein filament grown from follicles (4)


13. Viral disease contracted from animal bites (6)


15. Factors in analysis (acronym) (6)


18. Tooth centre or Mr Cocker’s crew (4)


19. Promotes the production of urine (8)


22. Windpipe (8) 23. Kim ____, founder of Patients First (4)


24. Chronic lung condition caused by exposure to fireproof material (10)


DOWN 2. Gem weight (5) 3. Small amount remaining (7) 4. Inn (6) 5. Has legal title to (4) 6. Revival (10) 7. Pour from one container to another (6)


10. Neural complication of diabetes (10)


14. Folk song (6) 16. Hearing range (7) 17. Preserved grass (6) 20. Stories (5) 21. Specific thing indicated (4)


See answers online at www.mddus.com. Go to the Notice Board page under News.


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monitored the treatment – though Mr Balme claimed to have advised the patient to get further advice as it was a “bad case”. A post-mortem later determined that Mrs Taylor died from cancer of the breast with secondary deposits in other organs. The examining doctor stated that, in his opinion, had the woman been surgically treated in the earlier stages of the disease she would be alive today with a good chance of a “perfect cure”. In instructing the jury, the coroner said it had to decide whether in persisting with the treatment offered by the Balmes the “deceased had been prevented from attending elsewhere. If so, it amounted to manslaughter.” The jury returned a verdict in just half an hour that no blame could be “attached to anyone” in the case. The Leeds Mercury newspaper commented that the case “read more like a tale from the Middle Ages, when ignorance and credulity went hand in hand, than a sober account of events which have taken place within a few weeks of the opening of the twentieth century”.


Source: BMJ Dec 1, 1900. SUMMONS


PHOTOGRAPH: WELLCOME FOUNDATION


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