At the beginning of last year, I read a statement that honey was spread on wounds in the Middle Ages. That seemed an odd thing to do and there was no source given in the notes of the book. It didn’t even say what putting honey on wounds was supposed to achieve or whether that was a sensible thing to do.
I searched through some of my more likely books, but could find nothing about it at all. I have three books about medicine in the medieval and renaissance periods and none of them mentions honey in their index.
More recently I was reading the magazine produced by the gin club I’m in and there was an article about bees. Apparently honey is a good ingredient for some cocktails, but that wasn’t what I found interesting. Towards the end of the article it said that honey “naturally produces the antibacterial substance hydrogen peroxide in small amounts. In nature this protects the honey stores from bacteria…”. So there it was: an antiseptic that was used in the Middle Ages.
A few weeks after that, I was listening to a podcast I follow and the interviewee was talking about the stockpiling of honey during times of war in the Middle Ages, the inference being that it was taken on campaign to be used on wounded soldiers. She also spoke about a reference to honey being used by a doctor on a very important patient – Prince Henry, soon to be Henry V.
When he was Prince of Wales, Henry fought in the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. An arrow struck him in the face, penetrating six inches, and he was taken to Kenilworth Castle where John Bradmore, a court physician who was in prison under suspicion of counterfeiting coins, worked out a method for extracting it. Not surprisingly, other physicians were wary of removing the arrow, since the chances of killing the young prince were high. Given that counterfeiting was punished severely, Bradmore must have thought he had little to lose. He also had a plan.
I won’t go into the details of the plan and how it worked out; you might be eating. Suffice it to say that the arrow was removed and Henry survived. What matters is that Bradmore wrote a treatise about what he had done called Philomena, in which he recorded that he poured honey into the wound.
It has taken over eighteen months, and a variety of unexpected sources, but I now feel that I can refer to honey being used on wounds in my novels rather than to some unnamed ointment.
April Munday is the author of the Soldiers of Fortune and Regency Spies series of novels, as well as standalone novels set in the fourteenth century.
Available now:
Wish I had a source for you, 🙁. I think it pre dates the Medieval period, being used in antiquity. I’m sure I have come across references of use after battles in Rome.
It is still being used, even within the NHS. Due to a consultant’s shortsighted decision not to dress the wound on my leg, I ended up with MRSA in the wound. There was nothing entertaining about that, so I omitted that from the story, but the wound was then dressed with honey each day to help clear the infection.
LikeLiked by 5 people
I’m sorry about the MRSA, but that’s fascinating. I didn’t realise honey was still used today. The woman in the podcast implied that it wasn’t, because honey is pasteurised, but I might have misunderstood that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well it may have been raw honey that was used. , I’m not sure, it was in a little vial
LikeLiked by 2 people
Someone else has pointed me in the direction of a paper on the medical uses of honey and it’s used a lot. You’re right about the Romans and the Saxons used it as well.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m sure you will find traces of Egyptians & Greeks using it too
LikeLiked by 2 people
Well it may have been raw honey that was used. , I’m not sure
LikeLiked by 3 people
You are correct Sonia. I know that previous generations in NZ used raw honey for healing.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Manuka honey here in NZ has an active ingredient that is said to heal. I think honey on dressings was used during the WW1 or WW2.
I love borage and grew quite a large quantity of it when we had our orchard.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Borage is a weed in my garden. I first grew it from seed for the bees. I have to dig some of it up every year, as it interferes with the vegetables.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A cliff hanger!I am looking forward to the plan!…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bradmore’s plan was to pour honey into the wound and to insert dowels of increasing size into it. It was a barbed arrow, so it wasn’t going to come out without doing a long of damage. Eventually, the wound was large enough for him to insert something large enough to cover the barbs and to pull the arrowhead out. It took days apparently.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow!I must remember that 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’ll be useful next time you come across someone with a barbed arrow in the face.
LikeLiked by 3 people
We get that a lot in these parts 😀 😀
LikeLiked by 3 people
Haha 😆
LikeLiked by 3 people
Weren’t spiders’ webs used on wounds to promote healing?
LikeLiked by 3 people
I’ve come across that, but I’m not sure where. I’ve read so much about medieval medicine this year that I’m not sure which cure was used for which illness/wound. If there’s enough information, I’ll do a post when I come across it again.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Please do! I love learning about medieval medicine.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Webs had to do with stopping bleeding. I read it long ago
in an article about remote places in Indonesia. The practice must have been known since earliest times, perhaps by chance encounters of bleeding parts coming into contact with webs. This information probably passed through generations of humans in areas where spiders made webs.
Apparently if the wound is small, webs can be loosely wadded & placed over the cut. Seems like it’d take a bunch of webs for large wounds, but they have some enormous webs in jungles and wooded areas. Maybe honey is used as well? Pretty sure a bandage of some kind is also applied, but it was along time ago & I was pretty grossed-out.
I wonder if the Eastern Asian cultures used fabric silk for wounds? Real silk was used (and may still be) for sewing wounds closed.
We’ve lost a lot of really good survival skills! Thankfully, April’s contributions are helping us!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m really not very keen on the idea of using cobwebs on a wound, but it’s in the front of my mind now and I’m bound to come across something.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A work colleague of mine who was a beekeeper, as was her mother, always used honey on wounds. Their honey, of course was not pasteurised. Manuka honey is still promoted as a treatment for wounds. Since I was a child I have loved the fact that honey doesn’t go off-great substance all round. My husband has an aversion to anything sticky so I don’t think it would work as a treatment in this house!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Honey is great. Now that I know, I think I’ll buy raw honey, if I can find it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Health food shops sell it e.g. Holland and Barrett-not cheap though.
LikeLiked by 2 people
No. It’s strange how something that doesn’t need to be tampered with costs less when it’s been tampered with.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Manuka honey is very expensive here. Approx $50 -60 200g that might be on the cheap side!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can’t remember where, but recently I too came across a reference to a medieval practice of using honey on wounds. I think it was in a novel. Thanks for sharing your research journey on this! ❤
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks Timi. I’ve learned even more today.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I’m so glad your 18-month search has paid off. What a great feeling!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you. I have to confess that it wasn’t a very active search. I just noted things down when I came across them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Grand post April, I did know about honey still being used in the NHS (as is Oxygen & egg white!) but am late to the party so won’t blither on.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Somehow I missed this on the day. What on earth is egg white used for?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually I think it’s not much in use nowadays but when I was a nurse egg white and piped oxygen was applied to heal pressure sores. I think now they prevent pressure sores from happening in the first place. I forget things have moved on sometimes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Who’d have thought it. I bet that’s an old rememdy that they couldn’t improve on.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I was writing my book (set in 12th century) I used both honey and cobwebs for wounds. Please be assured that I have no connection to these authors, but these are the books I used in my research: Dragon’s Blood & Willow Bark: The Mysteries of Medieval Medicine by Toni Mount (later re-titled, Medieval Medicine: Its Mysteries and Science) and Royal Poxes and Potions: Royal Doctors and their Secrets by Raymond Lamont Brown.
Hope this helps!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for the recommendations. Someone else mentioned the Toni Mount book this week and it’s waiting in my shopping list on Amazon. I’ve stuck the other one there as well.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A fascinating honey discussion. As others have noted, manuka honey has particularly high anti-bacterial qualities, and is used to make medical grade honey for dressing wounds.
Whether eating manuka honey is better for you than eating other types of honey might be debateable – but its reputation means it’s way more expensive in the supermarkets. Sometimes I buy a little jar as a treat. A teaspoonful goes well with a cup of lemon or turmeric tea and I tell myself it’s good for my joints.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I put honey in my herb teas, but I use a cheap supermarket one.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Chamomile tea, with honey, a wedge of lemon, & slice of ginger root.
Good fer all that ails ya! Cheers!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nothing that fancy for me, I’m afraid. I have mint and lemon balm, separately not together, from the garden.
LikeLike
Can any Kiwis tell me what is special about Mankua? It’s $15 U.S. for 250 ml., or 8.8 fluid oz. It may be worth putting into a medicine chest, as honey is always good.
I did hear that Mankua does not have peroxide. Is that good or bad?
LikeLike
I know a number of natural medicine practitioners, and have run across the “honey for wound care” idea a number of times. So glad you were able to get a source for it, so you don’t have to use a generic ointment for your books (it’s always the little things, isn’t it?). I also did a bit of Googling, and thought you might be interested in this article, which starts off with the Henry story –
http://www.longwood.edu/news/2015/medieval-surgeons-surprisingly-skilled-in-healing/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for the link. It’s an interesting article. I also looked up the book. It costs £180, so I’ll have to live without it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I was reading through ‘In Search Of The Dark Ages’ again the other day and noticed that, in the section on Offa, it has a list of the things they ate at a typical feast. One was 10 jars of honey! So it wss certainly a widespread foodstuff. If it worked on wounds, I’m definitely wouldn’t be surprised to hear they used it a lot in medicine.
LikeLiked by 2 people
My goodness. 10 jars is a lot, even for a feast.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m currently writing a novel that takes place in the Middle Ages. Needless to say, your article will be very useful for my story. Thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad it was of use.
LikeLike
Fascinating as ever, April. I do admire your attention to detail and tenacity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Mike. I just write about things that interest me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, you’re very good at it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Modern Special Forces are taught to use honey to treat surface wounds. The pure sugar acts as an antiseptic, and the honey will cling to the wound’s surface and act as a barrier to prevent bacteria from getting in.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s definitely a useful substance, but you have to make sure it’s unrefined.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Raw Mankua honey will keep it’s potency for centuries. Pricey, but for a shelf life like that, and the properties it carries, a bargain!
LikeLiked by 1 person