There are a few reasons why this theory remained unchallenged for so long. First, the strict religious doctrine of the time made autopsies and the study of cadavers a criminal offense. This didn’t stop every scientifically (or morbidly) curious individual as one could always purchase a freshly-exhumed corpse from its newly-dug grave, but the religious laws served as a deterrent. Second, the Great Plagues swept through much of Europe during the Middle Ages, raising awareness in people that disease can be spread from one human body to the next with deadly consequences. Fear of contracting cancer, the plague, or any kind of disease, from a patient, dead or alive, was enough to stop physicians and would-be coroners from examining their patients too closely.
Yet cancer was well-known. There are references to cancer, or at least tumors, in Egyptian writings dating as far back to the Ebers papyrus of 1550 BC. Hippocrates wrote about cervical cancer and recommended a trachelectomy, better known as a cervicectomy, to surgically remove the cancerous cervix and attach the vagina right to the uterus. This procedure was a dismal failure and Hippocrates declared that nothing could stop the cancer’s spread. Interestingly, doctors resurrected the trachelectomy in the 1940s, but it was no more successful than it was centuries before. Our research was unclear whether Hipoocrates’ trachelectomy was performed through an abdominal incision or via the vagina, but in the era in which germs and bacteria were unknown and infections festered freely, neither route seemed safe.
Determining the cause of cervical cancer vexed physicians for hundreds of years. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t put forth theories, strange as they may seem to us today. Cancers, and diseases in general they thought, that weren’t the result of the natural aging process, were the result of God’s punishment for immoral living, so said the predominant theory of the Middle Ages. It was God’s will, therefore, it should be accepted and endured, not cured. In fact, it was suggested that a tangible link between a decadent lifestyle and cervical cancer existed. An Italian doctor in Florence noticed in 1842 that cervical cancer was more prevalent in married women and prostitutes, while nuns had a very low cervical cancer rate. Conversely, nuns had higher incidences of breast cancer. The genius of a doctor concluded that wearing tight corsets, as nuns did 24/7, was the cause of breast cancer and occasionally going sans corset, like wanton prostitutes and wives, caused cervical cancer. So, we assume, if one did not get either form of cancer, she was wearing her corset an appropriate amount of time.
The doctor was right in one regard; sexually active females were more susceptible to cervical cancer, yet scientists, even twentieth-century doctors couldn’t exactly figure out why.
As late as the 1950s, the cause of cervical cancer was blamed on smegma, the creamy, cheesy white gunk that gathers under the foreskin of men and in the folds of the vaginal opening in women. It wasn’t until late into the twentieth century when researchers determined the disease was caused by contact with the human papillomavirus that steps could be taken to eradicate this form of cancer via vaccinations.
It is clear that cancer was a killer, in antiquity as much as it is today, but advances in causal understanding and medical treatment options in the modern era lessen the chance that cancer will claim its victim. And when viewing the treatments procedures of the Middle Ages, one can’t help but wonder if the cures were worse than the disease.
Syphilis, Gonorrhea, and Herpes, Oh My!
“Let’s kiss again,” suggests one lover, and the mistress responds, “Do, do!” An onlooker mutters, “Do the devil and the grand pox will do you!”
If medieval folks needed any proof that sex was evil, they certainly had the evidence in the form of blisters, pus, and scabs. Venereal disease was rampant in the Middle Ages, in both men and women, and the connection between sex and disease was already well-known. Messing around with a vagina or a penis was a sure path to the big three venereal diseases — herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis (HIV/AIDS is a postmodern malady). While virus and bacteria and penicillin were unfamiliar, the people of the medieval era were well-versed in the symptoms of venereal diseases and have even developed treatment plans, as ineffective (and barbaric) as they seem today.
First, let’s define the term venereal. It derives, originally, from the word Venus, the goddess of love, which means that both women and hanky-panky were blamed for the introduction and spread of disease. That’s right, it was all the woman’s fault. During the Middle Ages, venereal diseases were not generally called venereal diseases. Rather, they went by several other monikers — the pox, the French pox, the clap, the gleet, piss-hot, the blister plague, and gentlemen’s disease. Enchanting, are they not?
Herpes was a scourge since Greek times as we have various written references to confirm this. The Greeks are even the one who first put a name to the oozy, spreading genital sores, calling them “herpes”, which means “to creep.” Or maybe it was so named because one contracted herpes from a creep who did not openly discuss his VD status with his sexual partner. Creep!
There was a treatment for herpes that continued on through medieval times. The blisters caused by the herpes outbreak were cauterized with a hot iron, which we think sounds like a perfect example of the cure being worse than the disease.
Medieval physicians believed that syphilis and gonorrhea were the same sickness, just in different states of progression. Symptoms were similar, after all. To prove once and for all that the two diseases were the same, John Hunter, a British doctor in the mid-1700s, sacrificed his own penis in the name of science. He took some pus from a gonorrhea patient and injected it into his own member, and he developed symptoms of syphilis, leading him to conclude that the two diseases were actually one. There was one problem with Hunter’s experiment (I know… you are thinking, just one problem?). The patient Hunter selected was, in fact, suffering from both gonorrhea and syphilis, which was rather common among folks at that time. So, Hunter doomed himself to the pain and suffering of gonorrhea and syphilis without the joy of catching it the fun way… and it was all for naught.
The most popular treatment for syphilis during medieval times was mercury. In fact, there was a pop culture phrase about it: “A night in the arms of Venus leads to a lifetime on Mercury.” Again with the Venus references! The mercury could be given orally, administered topically, in a salve that was applied to the lesions, or it could be seeped into the body via fumigation. This option was no fun. Afflicted people were locked in a box full of mercury with only their heads sticking out. A fire was built under the box and heated up until the mercury vaporized… like a sauna, only hotter and more claustrophobic. Or, the mercury was injected straight into the urethra of the VD patient, often using syringes that were shared among the masses. The ironic thing is, mercury didn’t work. It didn’t work at all. However, because syphilis sores often went away after time, mercury was credited with the cure.
Because VD had reached near epidemic proportions in the Middle Ages, desperate ignorates were easy prey for crooks and quacks with snake oil remedies to peddle. Entrepreneurs looking to make a quick buck will always fill a needed niche. Such was the case with venereal disease cures in the Middle Ages. Among them was Dr. Thomas Saffold, who developed Saffold’s Pills, one of many “pocky pills”, in the late 1600s. In Edward Ward’s 1709 The Secret History of Clubs, we find a reference to Saffold’s Pills. A gonorrhea sufferer bragged about having “as many bastards as ever Solomon had concubines, notwithstanding he had taken as many of Saffold’s Pills as would have furnished the entire fleet.”