QuickCheck: Is it true that people used to eat Egyptian mummies?
By AINA IZHAM
MEDICINE has come a long way, imagine a world where we didn’t have anesthesia, insulin, or even vaccines? The world wouldn’t be the same.
Before any of us were born, reliable medicine was hard to come by. People sought out cures long before modern science, turning to plant-based remedies, mineral substances, and ritualistic practices.
Some of these cures were... unconventional. Ever heard of humans eating other humans as medicine? More specifically, mummified humans?
Is this true?
Verdict:
TRUE
People did indeed consume Egyptian mummies as medicine for several centuries, a practice that may seem shocking today but was once considered legitimate medical treatment.
The proper term for this is medical cannibalism. For centuries, parts of Europe and China had their own remedies that involved consuming human flesh or bone.
So how did Egyptian mummies end up becoming medicine? It all started with mistranslations from an 11th-century historian.
The Arabic word "mumiya" refers to a natural tar-like substance called bitumen, which has genuine medicinal properties.
However, when Europeans first encountered Egyptian mummies preserved with dark resins, they mistakenly believed these were the source of "mumiya" and began grinding up mummified remains into powder for medicinal use.
This led to them snatching Egyptian tombs not for jewelry, but for the mummies inside.
By the 16th and 17th centuries, mummy consumption had become widespread across Europe. Ground mummy powder was prescribed for ailments ranging from headaches and stomach problems to broken bones and internal bleeding.
The practice became so popular that demand outstripped supply, leading to a macabre trade in mummified remains. Egyptian tombs were plundered specifically to supply European apothecaries.
Mummy was sold in pharmacies alongside other medicinal ingredients and could be purchased in various forms, including as a powder, tincture, or mixed into other preparations
The 18th century saw the practice fall out of favour as the Enlightenment saw the rise of the scientific method which led to physicians and scientists questioning its efficacy.
By the 19th century, consuming "mummy medicine" was more or less a thing of the past but some pharmacies still stocked the powder into the early 20th century.
Coincidentally, this was the same era that modern medicines like anesthesia and vaccines began to take shape, making the world of medicine a much more scientific, and a lot less creepy, place.
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