Latest / Privycast / Ep. 52 Rub Some Dung on it: Ancient Egyptian Medical Remedies from the Ebers Papyrus

Transcript

Ep. 52 Rub Some Dung on it: Ancient Egyptian Medical Remedies from the Ebers Papyrus · Privycast

0:01
Like where are you getting that much wasp dung?
0:03
Like, I feel like to get enough wasp dung to make any actual effect on what you're doing, you're gonna need quite a bit.
0:16
Welcome back to Privy.
0:18
Privy is a podcast about bathrooms.
0:21
Recorded from my home bathroom.
0:25
I'm your host, Hunter Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
0:29
Uh welcome back.
0:32
if I sound a little sultry or whatever the word is, uh I had some sort of uh chest and face congestion noise this last week, so I apologize if I'm
0:46
A little extra gravelly than normal.
0:49
Um a little weekly check in though, boy howdy.
0:53
if you if you uh keep up with the privy cast social media, either on Instagram or TikTok, you saw Toilet Tuesday, and if you saw it on TikTok, I apologize, but you know now very
1:08
well that shortly before the recording of last episode, actually.
1:14
I uh dropped a big boy at Target and I almost didn't make it.
1:19
So and as you'll see, the Target bathroom was fully rando.
1:24
Like there was standing swamp in one toilet and the seat in the other one, which is consequently the stall I used, not great.
1:35
And even though we've talked at length on the show about
1:40
How to properly use and install one of those silly paper toilet seat liners.
1:46
For the life of me, I still to this day cannot get it facing the right way.
1:52
Um normally I just skip the whole process and I figure my beef's already a little bit randy.
1:57
So we're gonna be fine.
1:59
But I I could not skip it this time because the target toilet seat was just abysmal.
2:07
But I could not remember which way this Joker goes.
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And so I did my best.
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But then when you go to wipe, it becomes part of the wipe job.
2:15
And then it all just goes down anyway.
2:17
In my case, I would have been better off just not even going for it.
2:24
To tell you the truth, uh yeah.
2:27
I gotta tell you, there's something about having to interact with what other folks have left behind that just does not do it for you when you are an emergency job at Target.
2:37
Uh that is not the time to have to interact with other people's fowl.
2:42
And to be even more honest, maybe it's just our modern overfed American diets that causes this.
2:48
Like, it's so wild.
2:51
Like, even the fecal matter looks greasy, for goodness sakes.
2:57
We gotta figure it out, but you know, like cheeseburgers taste pretty good.
3:01
Uh hey, you know what though?
3:04
I gotta tell you, and this is gonna lead us
3:07
We're not gonna waste any time this week.
3:08
We're gonna get right into the the topic of the week.
3:11
But I gotta just tell you flat out.
3:14
When I see a a uh traditionally produced human turd, American or otherwise, the last thing that I think when I see that is go, hmm.
3:25
You know, now that might just be medicine, but the same cannot be said for every time and culture.
3:32
And in the past, we have talked.
3:35
About how Egyptians care very deeply or the ancient Egyptian cultures and probably Egyptians today, I'm not trying to make a thing out of it.
3:45
They care deeply about being clean.
3:47
Uh they cleanliness is next to godliness, we've talked about that.
3:52
And and and in unearthing a lot of information about medicine and hygiene and things related to ancient Egypt, another little piece of information has come to light.
4:05
It surfaced much like a groundhog or a prairie dog sneaking out of the old backside at his surface.
4:12
The Egyptians, the ancient Egyptians, put their poo and the poo of the animals in the in the world that they inhabited to the test and to use in some of the most wildest ways
4:30
possible or imaginable.
4:32
And so
4:34
This week on Privy, we are looking at some of those ways.
4:37
We're looking at first the document that details the medical use of none other than poop.
4:45
Yes, poop as medicine in the ancient Egyptian world.
4:49
We're talking about the Egyptian Ebers Medical Papyrus.
4:55
So this document, the Ebers Medical Papyrus, uh was
5:01
When it was discovered a scroll that was 68 feet long, one short, and all rolled up and about 12 inches wide.
5:10
So it's a good size scroll.
5:12
Um, like if you unrolled that joker, it would take some it would take some time.
5:17
There's a lot of information on there.
5:18
That's what you gotta know.
5:21
And the scroll was divided into 110 different sections.
5:27
These sections were
5:30
called pages, although it's one scroll, it's continuous, so like it's not separate pages.
5:35
But it had a hundred and ten different sections or pages, and some of them were missing.
5:40
There's a few that are missing like in in their finding of it.
5:44
But like I had to take a big swig of that Mountain Dew like peach garbage that Kentucky fried chicken has.
5:51
It's good.
5:52
Hey their their chicken might be finger looking good but this Mountain Dew is something else looking good.
5:57
You know what I'm saying?
5:58
that's real tasty.
6:00
But could you imagine though, like being an archaeologist over there in Egypt, you're just sully deep in the in the dirt and you find this big old scroll and it's probably got like
6:12
weird markings and pictures and all this junk on it and you're like I don't what it says.
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But like it's a wild Easter egg hunt, and instead of finding eggs filled with candy, you find a dusty old roll of ancient text.
6:26
What a world.
6:28
A German
6:29
Egyptologist, which is a toologist that studies Egypt, uh by the name of George Ebers, was offered the papyrus.
6:38
This is key.
6:39
He did not find the papyrus himself.
6:42
He was offered the papyrus, the story goes, from an Egyptian who approached Ebers, George Ebers, saying that he had an artifact that he could purchase.
6:53
Now, these
6:55
He presented him with a number of artifacts and George Ebers is like, listen, bud, if you're if you're here to play hardball, I'll play hardball, but I ain't buying some of
7:05
these things.
7:06
Like, I'll pay good money for something good, you know what I'm saying?
7:09
And so the man later returned, now knowing that he had a serious buyer, and handed over a metal case, and in it was the medical scroll that now bears Ebers' name.
7:21
So George Ebers gets the credit.
7:23
For having brought this scroll and its knowledge into the Western and just like general knowledge of the public.
7:33
And so his name, as was custom, gets attached to the scroll, thus Iberis papyrus.
7:38
But the Egyptian at the time wanted too much money for it.
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And so uh Ibrus had to decline.
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He's like, it's too steep, it's too rich for my blood.
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Uh and so he he was forced to
7:53
decline and had to uh turn down the purchase of this of this scroll, which was probably difficult.
8:03
Um but later a wealthy friend of George Eber's named Her Gunther spotted him the needed cash.
8:11
Hey Herr Gunther, good job.
8:13
And as he worked with the scroll in translation and got some second opinions
8:19
They estimated and dated the scroll back to about 1500 BC.
8:24
Uh, and so it's an old piece of paper.
8:27
Um The scroll contained a lot of philosophy and anatomical things of the period, but the majority of the scroll was a description of ancient Egyptian medical practices.
8:42
And I've gotta tell you, and as I have already buried the lead with in the show today.
8:47
Some of these practices are not medical in nature.
8:51
You're gonna hear these and you're gonna go, What?
8:54
He did what with that?
8:56
And I'll a whole lot of them, more than you would expect, involve poop, human or otherwise.
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And it is my intention to describe the medical uses of poop as they are described in the Ebers Medical Papyrus.
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And so.
9:16
Under the category in the papyrus called organic remedies, we are told that quote, a mixture of lotus, watermelon, sweet beer, wine, and cat poop could be eaten.
9:34
That's right, folks, eaten to restore a person's strength.
9:38
So, first of all, you mix this.
9:41
Like who who did it first?
9:44
It's kind of like when you get
9:46
milk and you're like, who is the first person to go yanking on the cow booby to get the milk out?
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Like, and then said, Let's drink that as humans.
9:56
Who's the first person that went after this as a remedy?
10:01
Like d and said, Hey, I'll bet if I eat that, it will be like a power up.
10:08
Nowadays we drink Gatorade and back then they
10:12
ate this heinous mixture with cat poop in it, like come on now.
10:17
Like you can add this same mixture to your chest.
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They they believed you could rub this on your chest to quote, soften your abdomen and can be used anywhere there is quote hardening in your body.
10:30
Now, first of all, what?
10:35
Like the closest thing that I can find with brief searching and little to no medical knowledge
10:42
on the internet about what this could possibly be is a thing called scleroderma, probably saying it wrong.
10:51
So, like, that's the the hardening part.
10:54
But then there's the other thing.
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Like, have you ever smelled cat poop?
10:59
Have you ever smelled it?
11:01
It's so bad.
11:02
It's so awful.
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And then you just slather it up on your chest.
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Like it's VIX Vapor Rub.
11:10
No thank you.
11:11
Actually, I'll
11:12
I'll I'll take a no thank you on that one.
11:15
But here we are.
11:17
If your limbs are trembling or shaky, which could be like twitches or low potassium, I don't know, something like that.
11:27
Nowadays it's just like go eat a banana, take two and call me in the morning.
11:31
But back then, you go out to the goat pen.
11:36
What for wait for Dominic the Donkey to lay a fresh one?
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And then you take that donkey leaving, or as the papyrus calls it, the production of the ass.
11:50
Now, I I know you're thinking, did he just but like the donkey is called that?
11:57
It's so good because like that is also what the butt produces on a human, and that's also another name for butt.
12:07
But they are talking about a donkey here.
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Side note.
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But you take that fresh laid donkey turd and you add honey and sea salt, it's like a caramel.
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Like it's like them sea salt caramels you get from Costco, but it's donkey poop instead of chocolate.
12:27
If you want to get the premium edition, which they had an upgraded version, like it even says, like for better results, you can also add figs, date juice, bollocks fat, natron,
12:39
not sure what that is.
12:40
And some grain, which you can then cook and use as a poultice.
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Hey.
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If you get a burn, remedy 111 details how you can apply a mixture containing, he's back, cat's poop on the first day, and then you gotta follow it up with donkey turds on the
13:00
second day.
13:01
It's important that you lead with the cat and end with the donkey.
13:05
It seems like it's valuable to get the order right.
13:09
If the burn festers or puses out man.
13:15
The idea of a pus burn just is gross.
13:20
And also the technical term for when a wound festers is superrated or separated.
13:27
Um which to sounds way too close to supper to be right.
13:32
Uh but man, the English language is a wild, wild thing.
13:37
But if the burn festers or puses out, uh you can add elderberries and papyrus plant to the cat poop to help that situation.
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You can use donkey poop to get a splinter out.
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Not sure how.
13:51
I guess maybe it like dries it out and brings it to the surface, who knows?
13:56
In the Eber's papyrus, it also details the use of wasp dung.
14:03
Hey, did you know that wasps poop?
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Because I didn't I mean technically their pee and poo come from the same hole.
14:14
Another thing that I didn't know before this episode's research, uh but yeah.
14:22
You can use wasp dung for an ulcer.
14:24
Hey, you wanna know what else the Egyptian papyrus said you could use wasp dung for?
14:32
Wasp dung, you take it, which like first of all, I gotta ask f this and
14:37
This kind of goes for all of these remedies.
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Like how much?
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Like it says take wasp dung.
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Now, how much?
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It doesn't say there's no measurements given on any of these.
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We're eyeballing it.
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It's like I'm watching a bad food network show, but like the secret mystery ingredient every time is weird animal poop.
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Like, is there a lot of it?
15:01
Is there like a drop?
15:04
Like, where are you getting that much wasp dung?
15:06
Like
15:07
I feel like to get enough wasp dung to make any
15:13
actual effect on what you're doing, you're gonna need quite a bit.
15:16
But then like, how do you get that much?
15:19
Like, you out milking wasps for their poop?
15:22
No.
15:24
Or is it like just a little drop?
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At which point, is it even doing anything?
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Or is it just like your brain says, yeah, Kenny got the wasp dung in there, so I know it's gonna do something right this time.
15:35
But you take that, the wasp dung, which I'm gonna say again.
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and you grab a bunch of things you would cook with, like fennel and garlic, and seasonings and salt and that type stuff.
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And you're gonna take all those and you're gonna mix it up.
15:50
Uh and you're gonna mix it up, and then you're gonna form it into like a dirt clod ball.
16:00
Now, you you got the ball in hand, and then you're going to take that ball and to quote Aiden childbirth.
16:09
You're going to yank that up the birth zone and it should help the baby come out.
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But make sure there's wasp dung involved.
16:20
We wouldn't want it to not be in there.
16:25
Makes sense to me.
16:26
If you want to not get and I'm I'm not trying to like make fun of this ancient remedy stuff.
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I'm just pointing out that like some of this seems like a bad idea.
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And I'm we're gonna get to the reality of it in just a second.
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But if you want to not get pregnant, then you need to make an ointment of alligator poop and honey and smear it on your downstairs.
16:50
Now
16:52
I'm gonna go on record in saying that this one probably would work.
16:55
Like, if somebody got to the intimate stage of a relationship with someone and they derobed and they just had alligator dung just spread on their ding dong, I'm pretty sure
17:09
that is the the intimate moments of that evening are over.
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Like, you got alligator dookie downstairs.
17:19
Leading to further questions about how it got there.
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I think this one is actually a proven, tried and true.
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Don't need to test it because it's just logical.
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Fact this would work.
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I think the insinuation is that they still did it, but it would definitely be an effective contraceptive in that who would want to engage with that in the first place.
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So if you're constipated and need to get the poop out of your system,
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Remembering from our laxative episode, they believe that being constipated is the worst, most unholy thing you can be, because you're holding on to the dead and gross portions of
18:00
what you have interacted with.
18:02
Um The papyrus has a cure for constipation.
18:08
But interestingly enough, there's no poop involved in that one.
18:12
So, like isn't that interesting?
18:15
You know, like
18:18
No poop interaction to get the poop out.
18:20
Yep.
18:21
But if you're wounded, poop on it.
18:24
So that'll work.
18:26
Another is for itching and stiffness.
18:28
Um you make what I'm calling the poop grab bag, you got dog, you got cat, you mix it up with a bunch of other stuff and it helps with itches.
18:37
Okay.
18:38
Um pretty much if you have a skin disease in ancient Egypt, you're probably gonna rub some type of poop on it.
18:45
And it would seem there is a scrubbing that happens because they note at one point in the papyrus not to get too tired while doing it.
18:54
Giggity.
18:55
Like how how you have to really be kneading that deuce into this skin ailment to get tired from the process of rubbing the poop on you.
19:09
You'd have to really be getting at it.
19:11
Like that's what she's.
19:13
In the disease of the eyes section, we also find more poop.
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And I would say more poop than any person wanted or was hoping for.
19:22
In this section, the excrement of a new animal makes its makes its appearance.
19:28
It says if you have quote bleary eyes, all you have to do, according to the papyrus that is, was mix myrrh, onions, which, by the way, onions are famous for helping with bleary
19:41
eyes.
19:42
Cypress and clear oil, whatever that is, uh and antelope poop.
19:49
So that's fun.
19:50
Hooray for antelope poop.
19:53
Oh wait, there's one more ingredient that you're mixing in the mixture that you spread on your eyes.
19:58
The entrails of a quadit animal.
20:02
Now, I'm gonna tell you flat out here, I don't know what that is.
20:05
When it says the entrails of a cadet or a quadit, I don't know how to say it.
20:09
Animal, I don't know what that is.
20:12
But like I feel like entrails and poop don't go on your eyes.
20:18
Now this isn't a hunter's anecdote, but I I will admit this one thing.
20:25
Dang it, I might be able to eat my words here.
20:27
So my buddy, he I'm I'm gonna have him tell the story.
20:31
But at one point I'm gonna get him on here.
20:35
Uh at one point in his life he had to place
20:39
A contact lens made out of human byproduct on his eye to extract a parasite from his eye.
20:45
So there might be something going on here, but I doubt the poop is helping.
20:49
Um also, how is crushed up entrails and poop gonna help with quote bleary eyes?
20:56
It's gonna make them blear.
20:58
And if your eyes are glassy, you can use human poop mixed with other stuff.
21:02
But they do recommend it be from a kid.
21:05
So like
21:06
Who's the adult that's soliciting this from a child?
21:10
If you like, no.
21:12
Hey, hey, hey, psst hey kid.
21:17
Come crap in this cup for me.
21:18
My i my eyes are weird.
21:21
I don't feel comfortable.
21:23
the kid's gonna take off every time.
21:26
If you have a growth, such as cataracts in your eyes, you usually get your choice of poop related remedies.
21:31
You can mix the splat of a heanut bird with sea salt.
21:35
Could you imagine willingly putting bird poop in your eye?
21:39
No thanks.
21:39
Um you don't want that you can always grab a lizard and squeeze some turds out of him.
21:45
Lizard poop also comes in handy to keep hair from growing into the eye, once it has been plucked out.
21:54
I don't even know what that means.
21:57
One cure for the nervous system in the scroll.
22:00
And the longest ingredient list, which does contain hog dung, hog squat for for a nervous system treatment.
22:12
Your hair quits growing, rub poop on it.
22:14
The one remedy that seems like it probably would be sound advice is spread mouse poop on the walls of a storage bin to help ro help keep rodents out.
22:24
But then I'd like to point out you have mouse poop coming in contact with your grains and food and stuff.
22:29
So not the best idea, maybe cleanliness wise, there.
22:34
The Egyptians, um, the ancient Egyptians used poop to tell a lot of things about what was wrong with a person.
22:40
But we're gonna get on we're gonna get into that later this month.
22:44
There's plenty of other non waste related things in the papyrus.
22:49
Um it in the papyrus.
22:52
It notes that part of what the gods gave humanity and animals was the use of their excrement.
22:58
In fact, it also indicates that they believe the gods themselves, the gods of Egypt, blessed humanity by contributing their poop, as well as pretty much every other discharge
23:11
they have.
23:12
Yep.
23:13
Wish wish it wasn't in there, but it was.
23:17
Hey.
23:18
Hey, thank you, big Brady Bunch in the Sky.
23:21
For giving us these stinky deposits to use for our health.
23:25
We know the Egyptians believed the gods they worshipped could poop, and that a person who's regular was closer to godliness.
23:33
But why are they so infatuated, like with using it?
23:37
Like, why do so many of their medical treatments contain the use of poop?
23:43
Well, some of it is the poop involved in these medical treatments.
23:48
Is more spiritual or magical in nature.
23:51
And what I mean by that is many of these um treatments and remedies have an incantation or or a series of things that you can say if you want the treatment to work, or it serves
24:05
kind of like a prayer to the gods while you are enacting the treatment.
24:11
The Egyptians, the ancient Egyptians, also have certain beliefs in certain religious things related to certain animals.
24:17
Cats were a sign of good luck.
24:20
Donkeys are a sign of hard work and resilience.
24:23
Dogs point towards the afterlife and trying to appease the gods of the afterlife.
24:29
And so with this said, some even believe that the Egyptians believed that the dung uh and of these animals is
24:41
was like a a thing when you used it you invoke that animal in the use of this remedy.
24:49
And why not the other parts of it?
24:51
It's because this is a big thing here.
24:54
With this said, some believe the Egyptians believe the dung that scarab or dung beetles would roll was holy.
25:02
The scarab beetle will lay its eggs in the poop ball.
25:06
So the dung beetle he's like rolling his little ball.
25:09
It's like a snowball but it's turds.
25:11
And he's rolling it up, and as he does it, he'll lay his eggs in it, and they will actually grow inside that poop.
25:17
And as they roll and as they roll, one day the small insect larva emerges and go on to form their own dung balls in time.
25:27
The Egyptians, the ancient Egyptians, likely viewed this as a symbol of creation and new life.
25:34
In fact,
25:36
They based this assumption that the Egyptians may have regarded round ball-shaped animal droppings as sacred.
25:44
The dung beetle or scarab often appears in many religious writings for the ancient Egyptians.
25:51
The god Kerpi, Kepri, the yes, Kepri is often pictured as having the head of a scarab beetle.
26:00
They thought highly of Poop's abilities to tap into the spiritual realm of.
26:05
And help heal you by invoking the power of the animal or thing it once belonged to.
26:13
Because remember, being regular in ancient Egyptian thought is a sign of health.
26:20
And so the poop's not bad as long as it's out of you.
26:25
And while I think we could agree that many of these are generally sound advice, like the
26:34
Scientists have looked at this and they've gone, you know what?
26:39
Most of this wouldn't actually hurt you.
26:40
Uh like it might not help, but it probably wouldn't hurt.
26:45
With the exception of like eating it, probably don't do that.
26:48
Um but they also note that if the if the turds came from a herbivore animal, it's probably better because it doesn't have all the weird bacteria that like a carnivore meat-eating
26:59
animal is gonna have.
27:01
Like the more you know.
27:02
And so some of these things.
27:05
May have helped a little bit, probably not as much as other things could have.
27:10
But they didn't hurt.
27:12
And when you're in ancient Egypt, centuries away from the luxuries of modern medicine, if it don't hurt, it's probably worth trying.
27:23
Yep.
27:24
The more you know.
27:25
Think about that next time you grab for your eye drops.
27:28
You could be smearing lizard yats up there.
27:31
That's all I'm saying.
27:34
This brings us to the end of another episode of Privy.
27:37
Thank you for listening to me rant about the Ibra's Medical Papyrus.
27:41
It's a wild document.
27:42
It's very fun to look at.
27:44
I would encourage you guys to go check it out.
27:46
There'll be a link in the thing below.
27:49
You can go check it out in the show notes.
27:51
Um as always, we would invite you to uh follow us on social media.
27:57
We're at PrivyCast.
27:59
we trying to get some good stuff going on over there.
28:02
Trying to get regular posting going on.
28:04
We got Toilet Tuesdays.
28:05
We've got snippets.
28:06
We've got highlight videos.
28:07
We've got informational things.
28:10
Go check it out.
28:11
Um, see what sort of nonsense I'm getting up to.
28:15
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28:19
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28:27
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29:01
As always, we want to thank Kevin McLeod for the use of Barroom Ballet as our intro and outro music.
29:10
You can find Kevin's music at incompetech.com.
29:14
His music is licensed under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0.
29:20
Thanks, Kevin.
29:21
This is another episode of Privy.
29:23
Thank you all so much for joining us and listening.
29:27
And now, as always.
29:29
And we definitely ain't saving it for medical use.
29:33
Don't forget to flush.