Why it makes sense to use a donkey for treating whooping cough

Ancient remedies often sound unusual today: for example, smearing a black snail on a wart and then piercing it with a thorn to make the growth disappear, feeding a donkey to cure whooping cough, or rubbing ones head against a pigs back to treat mumps. Despite their strangeness, these folk treatments provide valuable insight into past daily life and the evolution of belief systems.

In rural Ireland, hundreds of such remedies existed, including using pigs to address mumps and snails for warts. Researchers from Brunel University of London explored a rare archive of 3,655 folk cures collected in the 1930s to examine an anthropological theory: that people turn to religious or magical remedies when the cause of an illness is unclear. Their findings were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Documenting Folk Knowledge

In 1937, the Irish Folklore Commission launched a project to preserve disappearing Irish traditions, enlisting young researchers and collaborating with the Irish Department of Education. About 50,000 schoolchildren were given notebooks and asked to interview their families and neighbors about local history, beliefs, and remedies. These notebooks were later transcribed, digitized, and form a comprehensive archive of Irish folklore.

The childrens work covered 55 topics, ranging from butter-making and games to the effects of famine and sectarian conflict. Remedies were recorded in both Irish and English, resulting in nearly 750,000 pages of documentation.

Patterns in Folk Medicine

The recent study analyzed 35 illnesses to understand if folk medicine followed psychological patterns. Researchers asked doctors to rate these diseases based on how understandable their causes would have seemed at the time. Common conditions like cuts and sprains were considered clear, while tuberculosis, warts, and epilepsy were deemed mysterious.

The study found that diseases with uncertain causes were about 50% more likely to attract magical or religious treatments. Infectious diseases such as mumps, whooping cough, and scrofula often had remedies involving supernatural elements. Treatments ranged from prayers and holy wells to more unusual practices, such as placing a sick child under a donkey and then feeding them bread the donkey had breathed on, or using a seventh son holding a worm to cure ailments.

These were not random traditions, explained the researchers. They reflect peoples efforts to influence health when clear medical solutions were unavailable.

The Need for Explanations

The study builds on anthropological research showing that ritual behavior often arises under uncertainty, such as fishermen offering prayers before dangerous voyages. Belief systems historically helped people make sense of unpredictable or frightening circumstances. While these remedies may seem quaint today, they reveal a universal human desire for solutions when conventional methods fail.

Future research will explore how these beliefs spread geographically, using the original school records to track the movement and persistence of folk remedies across Ireland.

Author: Riley Thompson