When the Black Death swept through Europe in the 14th century, people faced a disease they could not see, identify, or reliably treat. They knew only that victims developed fever, weakness, bleeding, and painfully swollen lymph nodes known as buboes. Entire households could be healthy one week and gone the next.
Today, scientists know that plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It commonly spreads through infected fleas or contact with infected animals, while pneumonic plague can pass through respiratory droplets. Prompt antibiotic treatment can cure modern plague, but medieval physicians had neither germ theory nor antibiotics. They worked with humoral medicine, astrology, religious explanations, folk traditions, and the belief that poisonous aircalled miasmacarried disease.
The result was a medical menu containing live chickens, powdered gemstones, human waste, snake pieces, and enough vinegar to dress history’s largest salad. Some remedies were sincerely reasoned within medieval medical theory. Others were desperate experiments, expensive scams, or legends associated with later plague outbreaks.
Here are 10 of the strangest Black Death cures people triedand what those treatments reveal about medicine, fear, and human ingenuity.
Why Black Death Medicine Became So Bizarre
Medieval European medicine was strongly influenced by the classical theory of the four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Health supposedly depended on keeping these bodily fluids in balance. If a person became sick, a physician might remove blood, prescribe purging, change the patient’s diet, or recommend medicines designed to restore equilibrium.
Plague created an additional problem. Many physicians interpreted it as a poison entering the body through corrupted air. That assumption made treatments involving smoke, perfumes, venom, strong spices, and foul-smelling substances appear more logical than they sound today. Doctors were not randomly throwing ingredients into a cauldron while laughing dramatically. They were working from an incorrect scientific modeland receiving catastrophically unreliable results.
1. Bloodletting: Losing Blood to Fix “Bad Blood”
Bloodletting was one of medieval medicine’s favorite solutions. If disease resulted from an excess or corruption of blood, removing some of it seemed like a sensible way to restore balance. Physicians, barber-surgeons, or other practitioners opened a vein with a blade and collected blood in a bowl. Those who could afford a more elegant experience might receive leech therapy instead.
For a plague patient already weakened by fever, dehydration, internal bleeding, or poor nutrition, losing additional blood was rarely helpful. It could cause fainting, worsen shock, introduce infection, and reduce the patient’s ability to survive. Nevertheless, bloodletting remained popular because it fit established humoral theory and produced an immediate, visible result. Something was definitely leaving the body, even if it was the patient’s remaining strength.
Why people believed it worked
Medieval practitioners often judged treatments through tradition, authority, and individual observation rather than controlled clinical trials. A patient who survived after bloodletting could become proof that the procedure worked. Patients who died were more likely to be blamed on the severity of the illness, poor timing, divine judgment, or an especially stubborn imbalance.
2. The Live-Chicken Treatment
One of the most notorious supposed Black Death cures is sometimes called the Vicary Method. A healthy chicken’s rear or back was plucked, exposing the skin. The bare area was then pressed against a patient’s swollen bubo and strapped into place.
The chicken was believed to draw poison from the victim. When the bird appeared sick, it might be removed, washed, and reapplied. The process reportedly continued until the chicken recovered, the swelling improved, or one of the participants stopped cooperating permanently.
No reliable evidence shows that a chicken could extract plague bacteria through its skin. Applying an animal to an open or lanced swelling could instead contaminate the wound. The method survives in popular histories because it perfectly captures the mixture of sympathetic magic, poison-drawing theories, and desperation found in plague medicine.
3. Rubbing Buboes With Chopped Snakes
Chickens were not the only animals drafted into medical service. Some accounts describe snakes being killed, cut into pieces, and rubbed against plague swellings. Pigeons were reportedly used in similar ways.
The reasoning was symbolic as much as medical. Snakes were associated with poison, danger, and evil. Because plague was often imagined as a poison, people believed that one poisonous or evil thing might attract another. In other words, the snake was supposed to persuade the plague to change apartments.
This approach reflected a broader “like treats like” tradition found in historical medicine. A substance resembling a disease, symptom, organ, or supernatural cause might be selected as its treatment. Unfortunately, symbolic resemblance is not antibacterial activity, and snake pieces offered no cure for Yersinia pestis.
4. Drinking Powdered Unicorn Horn
Wealthy patients could purchase a remedy unavailable to ordinary villagers: powdered unicorn horn. The powder was mixed with water or another liquid and consumed as an antidote. Unicorn horn had a grand reputation for detecting poison, purifying liquids, and curing dangerous illnesses.
There was one small manufacturing difficulty: unicorns did not exist. Materials sold as unicorn horn could come from narwhal tusks, rhinoceros horn, walrus ivory, or other animal products. Their rarity and mysterious origins made them ideal luxury medicines. High prices also encouraged the comforting belief that the remedy must be powerful. Medieval health care had apparently discovered premium branding centuries before modern marketing departments.
Powdered horn could not treat plague, but it offered status, hope, and a sense of control to people who had few effective options.
5. Swallowing Crushed Gold, Emeralds, and Precious Stones
Why stop at mythical horns when the household jewelry box was available? Historical discussions of plague medicine mention gold, emeralds, and other expensive materials being ground into powders and added to food, water, rosewater, or medicinal cordials.
Precious substances were thought to possess extraordinary purity and protective power. Gold did not corrode, so physicians sometimes connected its physical permanence with vitality and resistance to decay. Gemstones also carried astrological and symbolic associations. An emerald was not merely a green rock; it was a tiny celestial pharmacy with excellent resale value.
These remedies were inaccessible to most people and medically useless against plague. Swallowing mineral powders could also damage teeth, irritate the digestive system, or expose patients to toxic contaminants. The cure demonstrated that misinformation becomes no more scientific when packaged for wealthy customers.
6. Theriac: The Everything-But-the-Cauldron Potion
Theriac was one of the most celebrated medicines of the medieval and early modern worlds. Originally developed as an antidote to poison, it evolved into a complicated mixture that could contain dozens of ingredients. Recipes varied, but versions included herbs, spices, resins, opium, honey, and animal products such as viper flesh.
Because plague was interpreted as a type of poisoning, theriac appeared perfectly suited to the emergency. It could be swallowed, mixed into a cordial, or applied as a paste. Preparing it required time, expertise, and expensive ingredients, giving it the theatrical authority of a medicine that had clearly attended graduate school.
Some ingredients may have reduced pain, encouraged sleep, or provided temporary comfort. Opium, for example, could dull suffering. That did not mean the mixture eliminated plague bacteria. Its complexity also made consistent dosing nearly impossible, and contaminated or counterfeit versions created additional risks.
7. Scorpion Oil and Venom-Based Balms
Later European plague regimens included medicinal oils containing scorpions, vipers, or other ingredients associated with venom. One famous example came from Ferrara, Italy, where residents used a protective balm called Composito. Historical research suggests that its ingredients may have included myrrh, saffron, scorpion venom, and viper venom.
The logic was straightforward within the poison model: only a strong poison could defeat another poison. The balm was rubbed near the heart and throat, while clothing was warmed over scented fires and the body was cleaned with preparations containing wine or rose vinegar.
Ferrara achieved unusual success controlling later plague outbreaks, but historians point to the city’s border controls, sanitation laws, isolation policies, and strict enforcementnot magical scorpion oilas the more convincing explanation. This is an important lesson in historical interpretation: when five measures are used together, the weirdest one does not automatically deserve the credit.
8. Urine Baths and Human-Waste Poultices
Plague sufferers sometimes had swollen buboes lanced or covered with herbal pastes. Less appealing preparations reportedly included human waste. Urine was also treated as a medicinal substance and could be consumed, applied externally, or used for washing.
Urine inspection was a normal diagnostic practice in medieval medicine. Physicians studied its color, sediment, smell, and consistency for clues about the body. From there, assigning urine therapeutic powers was not a gigantic conceptual leapalthough drinking it was a gigantic practical mistake.
Fresh urine is not a cure for plague, and human waste can carry dangerous microorganisms. Placing contaminated material on broken skin could create secondary infections in a patient already fighting a lethal disease. This cure did not merely fail to solve the problem; it invited several new problems to move in.
9. Sitting Beside Sewers or Sweating Near a Fire
Belief in miasma produced two remarkably opposite strategies. Some people tried to escape bad air by surrounding themselves with pleasant smells. Others supposedly sat near open sewers, reasoning that the stronger foul air would attract the disease-causing air away from their bodies.
Another method involved sitting close to a hot fire. Heavy sweating was expected to force poison out through the skin or purify the body. A mildly ill patient might have interpreted sweating followed by temporary relief as proof that the treatment worked. A severely ill patient faced dehydration, overheating, smoke inhalation, or burns.
The sewer cure sounds absurd today, but it was built on an internally consistent assumption: similar forms of corrupted air would gravitate toward one another. The mistake was not a total absence of reasoning. It was reasoning built on a false explanation of disease.
10. Flagellation, Processions, Relics, and Sacred Remedies
Not every Black Death cure came from a physician. Many Europeans viewed the epidemic as divine punishment for human sin. Prayer, fasting, pilgrimages, sacred objects, charms, relics, and public religious ceremonies became important responses.
Flagellants traveled from town to town, publicly whipping themselves to demonstrate repentance and seek divine mercy. Large groups also gathered for processions and services. These practices could provide emotional support and communal meaning, but crowds and traveling participants may have increased opportunities for disease transmission.
Relics and liquids associated with saints were believed to heal illness. Pilgrims visited shrines, touched sacred objects, or carried home cloth, water, and other materials that had contacted a holy site. Faith could offer genuine psychological comfort during an almost unimaginable catastrophe, but it could not kill Yersinia pestis.
Were Any Medieval Plague Measures Actually Useful?
Although the cures above did not eliminate plague infection, medieval and early modern communities eventually developed public-health practices that could reduce transmission. Authorities isolated travelers, restricted movement, inspected goods, cleaned streets, burned contaminated belongings, and separated sick people from healthy populations.
The port of Ragusa introduced an isolation period for arriving travelers and ships, first lasting 30 days and later developing into the 40-day practice associated with the word “quarantine.” Other cities established plague hospitals and health boards. These measures were often inconsistent, harsh, or introduced too late, but they represented a major shift from treating individual bodies to managing community exposure.
It is also worth correcting a familiar historical image. The birdlike plague-doctor mask is mainly associated with later outbreaks, particularly in the 17th century, rather than the first Black Death wave of 1347–1351. Its beak was packed with aromatic materials intended to filter poisoned air. The costume has become the unofficial mascot of medieval plague, but history’s merchandise department simplified the timeline.
A Modern Experience of Exploring Black Death Cures
Reading about these treatments produces a strange emotional mixture. The first reaction is usually laughter. A chicken strapped to a swollen lymph node sounds like a rejected sketch from a medical comedy. Powdered unicorn horn belongs in a fantasy role-playing game, and sitting beside a sewer hardly seems like a premium wellness retreat.
Then the scale of the disaster comes back into focus. These were not eccentric experiments performed for entertainment. They were responses to terror. People watched relatives become ill and die within days. Physicians entered infected homes knowing that their training offered few dependable answers. Families tried whatever they could afford because doing nothing felt unbearable.
A museum visitor looking at a bloodletting blade may initially notice its craftsmanship. The handle can be decorative, the metal carefully shaped, and the instrument surprisingly small. Once its purpose becomes clear, the object changes. It is no longer simply an antique tool. It represents a medical system in which visible action often carried more authority than proven effectiveness.
Historical plague remedies also make modern medicine feel less automatic. Antibiotics, laboratory diagnosis, infection control, and epidemiological surveillance can seem ordinary because they are familiar. The Black Death reveals how extraordinary they are. Knowing that microorganisms cause disease transformed medicine, but that knowledge required centuries of observation, experimentation, technological development, and the willingness to reject respected explanations.
The experience can also create uncomfortable recognition. Modern society is not immune to miracle cures, expensive wellness products, confident misinformation, or treatments promoted through testimonials instead of evidence. The ingredients have changed, and unicorn horn has received a branding update, but fear still makes certainty attractive.
That does not mean people of the Middle Ages were foolish. They observed symptoms, compared outcomes, borrowed knowledge from older medical traditions, and tried to build explanations from the information available to them. Some plant-based remedies may have eased pain or treated minor secondary problems. Wine and vinegar had limited cleansing uses. Separating sick people from healthy communities sometimes reduced exposure even before anyone understood bacteria.
The most meaningful lesson is therefore not “look how ridiculous medieval people were.” It is “look what happens when an urgent medical crisis meets an incorrect model of disease.” Once miasma and humoral imbalance were accepted as foundational truths, bloodletting, aromatic smoke, venomous ointments, and purging could all appear reasonable.
Exploring the cures also reveals the importance of humility. Future generations will probably find some current practices incomplete, wasteful, or astonishingly misguided. Scientific medicine improves not because every doctor is always correct, but because evidence can challenge tradition. Treatments are tested, failures can be documented, and recommendations can change.
After spending time with the history of plague medicine, the strangest cure may not feel like the chicken, the snake, or the urine bath. The strangest part is how recognizable the emotional pattern remains: fear creates urgency, urgency creates demand, and demand creates someone willing to sell a solution.
That is why these bizarre treatments deserve more than a laugh. They are artifacts of human vulnerability, creativity, commerce, belief, and the persistent need to feel that somethinganythingcan be done.
Conclusion
The 10 crazy cures for the Black Death ranged from physically dangerous procedures to expensive potions and deeply symbolic rituals. Bloodletting attempted to rebalance the humors. Chickens, snakes, and pigeons were expected to draw out poison. Gold, gemstones, and unicorn horn transformed wealth into supposed protection. Theriac and scorpion oil tried to defeat poison with poison, while urine baths and waste poultices turned desperation into additional infection risks.
None of these treatments cured plague. The most useful historical responses were practical public-health measures such as isolation, sanitation, movement controls, and quarantine. Modern plague remains a serious illness, but prompt diagnosis and antibiotic treatment have replaced the medieval medicine cabinetand that is excellent news for patients, chickens, and unicorns everywhere.
Note: The remedies described here are presented for historical education only. They are ineffective or dangerous and should never be attempted. Suspected plague requires immediate professional medical care.