Honey, Mud, Maggots, and Other Medical Marvels: The Science Behind Folk Remedies and Old Wives' Tales

by Robert Bernstein

This book covers remedies from ancient Egypt to the rain forests of contemporary Latin America, and challenges the myth that modern clinical practice is the only effective form of medicine. The authors find that modern research often reveals a rational basis for supposedly outdated ideas. Most important, an increasing number of physicians, pharmaceutical researchers, and scientists are beginning to recognize the wealth of knowledge that can be retrieved from abandoned practices of earlier eras in Western medicine and from outside the boundaries of Western ideas entirely.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History, Medicine, Health, Medical, Anthropology

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

Reviews

[Cerise · Rating 1 out of 5]

The actual remedies are interesting, unfortunately the writing is distractingly poor. I started skipping the last sentence of each chapter to avoid the inevitable atrocious puns that were lurking there. These are not clever puns (which may make you roll your eyes but still make you smile), these are groan out loud, painful and embarrassing to read Fozzie Bear caliber puns:
pg. 30 " After all, maggot therapy didn't turn out to be such a flyblown idea, did it?"
pg: 70 "chalk up another success for geopharmacy!" (chapter on eating soil, clay and dirt)
pg. 86. "Far from absurd, bloodletting is proving itself to be a bloody good remedy"
Wocka Wocka Wocka!

I appreciate that they tried to make the subject matter fun and engaging, but I don't think it was successfully executed.

The chapter on circumcision is a soapbox; the authors make their stance on the matter known and just repeat it for an entire chapter. (as another reviewer also noted, it feels totally out of place).

An entire chapter is devoted to how the development of medicine parallels Lamarckian evolution. eh?

The last few chapters feel like the first half of the book was put in a blender and just thrown back together in different configurations.

What's the difference between myself and an angler?
One hates this book.The other baits his hook.

[Sofía · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading about the origins of many folk remedies, but the book is rather poorly written. Especially distracting were the cheesy puns and clichés at the end of each chapter. The extremely biased section on circumcision seemed rather out of place with the rest of the book.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sent this book on to my friends Sofia. She thought the same thing I did. Good information, mediocre craft and what is with the militant advocacy chapter on circumcision?

[Willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating.

I must admit, I usually pick up nonfiction books with a bit of trepidation. Some of them are so dry, I fall asleep reading the intro. This book I could not set down though. I was fascinated by all the squirm-worthy and nasty cures in this book and the medical science behind them.

Until I read this, I could never understand why bleeding and leeches was such a popular cure for so long. Now I see that it was used to lower a fever and it actually worked. If only people wouldn’t have taken so much blood, it might not have killed the patient. If you’re ever curious as to why people used to put urine in sleeping droughts, this book will tell you why.

This was a fast easy read and I whipped right through it. I have to laugh, because the atrocious puns that one reviewer complained about didn’t bother me at all. I rather thought it was a fun read. I was bit off though by the preachy chapter on circumcision. Consequently I knocked off a star.

[Willa Guadalupe Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book for the research into old & ancient medical treatments, I just wish that the authors were able to cast as critical an eye on modern medicine as they do on old treatments. It doesn't seem to occur to them that turning an ancient herbal treatment into a big pharma pill, is not necessarily better or safer & has it's own problems. Modern medicine has it's own amounts (sometimes quite significant) of mortality & morbidity. This book is worth owning just for the information on old ways if you are so inclined. The authors advocacy of circumcision shows poor research & obvious self-delusion & discomfort. The writing was poor but I will keep this one for the information that was new to me.

[Kristin Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fabulous. It doesn't waste anytime in giving you the most interesting information. From the very first chapter, I was hooked! They talk about folk remedies that have been around for hundreds and thousands of years that have actually been proven to work and are being revisited in the medical field today. Everything from eating clay, drinking urin, and using cellophane to dress wounds, this book will get you thinking! The only drawback is the last 2 chapters were hard to get through for me. It seemed like they were repeating themselves quite a bit in an opinionated sort of way. However, it's well worth it and with all the information about alternative treatment, i feel much more prepared for a zombie apocalypse :)

[rivka · Rating 3 out of 5]

A surprising number of modern medical treatments have their roots in folk remedies. Even those that have been shown to be too dangerous or impractical for modern use have informed modern medicine.

Organized by treatment or substance, this book is fairly well-written (although a tendency to barely-relevant and overly-verbose tangents can be annoying) and gives a good presentation of the relevant medical issues for the layperson. The extensive bibliography helps determine the right direction for deeper research.

Could've done without large chunks of the last few chapters, though. We get it: Cultural/medical evolution is Just Like Real Evolution! Enough already!

[Margaret Skea · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much here to fascinate.


I generally reserve 5* for books that I will read and read again, and this is one of them - I've read it, listened to it on CD and read it again. Great for car journeys - can't fall asleep with these facts being read to you. As a writer of historical fiction it has a particular interest for me - some of this will definitely make it into my books - engaging and easy to follow style also - glad to have it on my bookshelf.

[Niomi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unscientific, extremely biased, anti-black (Root-Bernstein has the gall to claim that black people die from malnutrition because they eat too much clay rather than food scarcity), a full chapter of pro-circumcision nonsense that concludes with (paraphrased) "infant genital mutilation isn't required to prevent HIV or cancer but we recommend it anyway".

Avoid this book unless you want to fill your head with useless, unscientific, low-key orthodox religious "facts".

[Maureen Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives the history of medicinal cures before the discovery of antibiotics. There are still a lot of viable uses for the information today, especially with the high cost of medical care in some areas. It was very interesting.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating overview of the scientific basis and potential benefits of such folk remedies as honey-sugar wound bandaging, geophagy, circumcision, maggots, wound-licking (even cross-species!), leeches, and more. I wish the section on quackery was more in depth, but the section on how the economics of health care in American means low-cost and proven folk remedies can never be offere on scale as their is not the profit possibility to support approval. One potential example is Dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB), a chemical used in color photography processing, that could be beneficial to those dealing with AIDS.

[Angi M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book! So far, I've learned that you can heal bed sores and other lacerations with sugar and honey; use leeches to heal reattached limbs & skin, blood clots, glaucoma, and other things; wounds that have been infected with pus heal better than wounds that don't get infected; certain types of maggots are great for cleaning out dead tissue in gangrenous wounds but other types eat living flesh and make problems worse- you have to get the right kind of fly; bathing in water up to your neck a couple times a day can help heal liver disease. And lots more. Fun stuff!

[Sacha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the chapters on specific cures: maggots, honey, head-out immersion, geopharmacy, blood letting, leeches, laudable pus, licking wounds, urotherapy, circumcision, contraception, and cellophane as a bandage. These chapters included interesting history, science, and warnings. The writing was rather verbose. There would have been no loss if about 20% of each chapter had been cut in my humble opinion. The last three chapters of the book were not focused on specific cures and less interesting to me.

[Two Readers in Love · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes: This book is not claiming, as so many of-the-zeitgeist "holistic medicine" books currently do, that folklore is superior to science, only that folk remedies do contain some past observations and are worth scientific investigation. It was interesting to learn that even apes use honey and primitive surgery to treat wounds. Medicine - like the educational system - is a product of culture, and as such becomes ritualized with white coats replacing the medicine man's feathers. Sometimes those rituals need to be challenged.

[Gato Negro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides an interesting historical perspective on what preceded modern medicine. I borrowed it from the library mainly to read the chapters related to honey as medicine, but found myself engrossed in the other chapters too. We owe a lot to the Native Americans for their expertise in remedies. I was also intrigued by the idea that many healers found their inspiration by watching what animals do when they are sick or wounded. A good read.

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great little collection of effective remedies that work fine when expensive, high-tech medicine isn't available. Did you know you can heal those weeping sores diabetics get by packing them with sugar? Did you know that Kaopectate tastes like chalk because that's what it's made from? All kinds of cool stuff is in here. I only wish it had been longer.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can someone please explain to the author how puns work? Because he keeps trying to make them but misses so wide it actually creates a whole new humourous category.

Otherwise rather poorly written review of a selection of natural remedies. Also contains a somewhat deranged chapter about circumcision. Maybe, like with the (not)puns, you have to be American to get it.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book goes through "the science behind folk remedies and old wives tales" such as, does licking a wound help? I liked that it talked about chemicals and actual reactions that can take place. It had a lot of eww, that's really cool moments, but I have to admit I didn't read it cover to cover.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many current medical practices have their origins in home remedies and folk medicine. Today medi-honey is used for wound treatment, for example. I like off-beat books that teach me things. While not extremely well-written, this is a fun book to read if you have any interest in medicine at all.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[Tracey]

615.88 Ro 1997 - KHCPL NL 23 May 2008 & shoshanapnw gave 3 stars

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

It just makes me wonder how I would identify the right kind of fly after I've seriously injured myself in a remote location. Luck of the draw to get the necrotic flesh-eating kind.

[Katherine]

Fantastic

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book for the skeptic.

[Selkie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not near as interesting as the title would indicate, but it does have its good points.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was incredibly interesting up until chapter 14. After that it was just a slog.

[Nancy Herbst · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure I would have finished this one if I was 'reading it,' but it was a great 'hear.'

[Peter Holz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a thought provoking read rediscovering the wisdom of the ancients: honey, maggots, leeches. It achieved a good balance between modern medicine and traditional remedies, not pushing one over the other but rather taking the view that they are complementary and should operate side by side, each having a place in the modern physician's armory. However, it also took the sensible view that folk remedies, like modern medicine, should be evidence based and, just because they are "natural", that does not necessarily make them better, exposing some as being downright dangerous. It did seem to push the circumcision barrow a bit heavily, though.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book (the "Honey, Mud, Maggots" part) was very interesting. But the last half (the "Other Medical Marvels") was dull and a bit repetitive. The subject matter propelled the first half, while the writing dragged the last half.

[Jennifer Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genuinely interesting, but the last five chapters seem to have no reason to be there (they just repeat the concepts covered in the first twelve chapters, with little point or structure). Also, there are way too many groan-worthy puns—the authors seem to think no chapter is complete without one.