Good news, right? Here’s the cure: “Take bear fat [i.e. kill a bear without a pistol], a small number of ashes from wheat straw or from winter wheat straw, mix this together and anoint the entire head with it.” This is according to the 12th-century scholar Hildegard. Another treatment included mixing chicken or pigeon droppings with ashes and lye and rubbing it on the bald spot.
In the Middle Ages, though vanity, as today, preferred a nice head of hair, a wide bald spot did represent virility, as long as the man grew a thick beard. A man without a dense beard, but chocked with abundance on top, was considered weak.
A Peek Inside a Garderobe
Let's take a closer look at the Garderobe latrine, a fascinating historical feature. This peculiar toilet design is quite intriguing. Instead of flushing, a hole is present, leading directly to the surrounding moat. Surprisingly, the accumulated excrement played a vital role in deterring enemy infiltrations, an often overlooked aspect of a moat's military defense strategy.
Interestingly, monasteries had similar-looking toilets, although the number of potty holes would usually not exceed 45. On the other hand, commoners shared public latrines, just like the monks, without any privacy whatsoever. These public facilities were regularly emptied into a cesspit, occasionally repurposed as fertilizer for agricultural needs.
The Chamber Pot
Tip: don't eat while reading this. Besides public toilets, people used chamber pots inside their homes, usually stored under beds. It’s a disgusting but true fact that these chamber pots were not uncommonly dumped out windows onto walkways.
At night, the smelly excrement stayed under the bed. In the morning, watch out! From upper stories, passersby walking beneath had to be careful. Toilet paper was not invented yet, so, moss, leaves, grass or straw might do the trick. In fact, toilet paper would only be invented in 1857, and consumers would have to wait til 1890 for it to be commercially available.
Bloodletting: The Cure-All
Be thankful that modern doctors won’t try to cure your illness by attaching blood-sucking leeches to your flesh. Besides applying leeches or worms to draw blood from the patient, opening a vein directly with an incision to alleviate excess blood in the body was also practiced in the Medieval period.
If these methods failed, physicians might try charms, totems, or amulets, which make sense when you know that the Christian church believed sin was responsible for diseases. Still, 'sense' is a stretch. This practice lasted centuries after the Middle Ages, and it was even the cause of death for President George Washington.
Trepanning: The Medieval Lobotomy
Trepanning is a barbaric form of medical treatment from the Middle Ages. Intended to cure mental illness, migraines, epilepsy, and other brain ailments, some patients survived the so-called cure. The procedure entailed drilling into the side of the patient’s skull, without anesthesia, to expose the outer membrane of the brain.
As the oldest form of surgery known, predating the Medievalists by thousands of years, it was thought to relieve pressure in the brain so that “the humors and air may go out and evaporate.” Yeah. We guess, when you're working with next to no concrete knowledge of how the human body works, this wasn't such a leap.