In medieval medicine, trends similar to those of TikTok

Rose oil to combat migraines, lizard shampoo for thick, flowing hair: many of the remedies popular in the Middle Ages demonstrate that interest in health and medicine was stronger than previously thought, often leading to the development of topical ointments and detox recipes reminiscent of today's viral TikTok trends . This is according to researchers at Binghamton University in the United States, who participated in a large-scale international project to create an online catalog of medieval manuscripts containing medical materials.

The catalogue is called Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine (Cemlm) and was funded by the British Academy. It contains hundreds of medieval manuscripts from across Europe, containing medical material dating back to before the 11th century . Many had been excluded from previous catalogues, and their inclusion has almost doubled the number of known medieval medical manuscripts. Many of the writings were found in the margins of books entirely unrelated to medicine, dealing, for example, with grammar , theology , or poetry .

This demonstrates a strong interest in the health of the body and the search for ways to manage it. At that time, "people were engaging with medicine on a much broader scale than previously thought," observes historian Meg Leja of Binghamton University. "They were interested in cures, they wanted to observe the natural world and record information wherever possible. It's true that many sources for that period are missing; in that sense, it's a 'dark' period. But not in the sense of an 'antiscientific' attitude," adds Leja. "In the early Middle Ages, people were very interested in science , in observation, in understanding the usefulness of different natural substances; they tried to identify patterns and make predictions."