What if drug-resistant bugs send medicine back to the Dark Ages?

Could we see a return to the diseases that time forgot?

It may be an old cliche, but when people say: “You’ve always got your health” it’s generally meant as a good thing. But if they were to say: “You’ve always got your ELF” you should probably start worrying especially if they’re referring to Water Elf Disease.

It was just one of the many awful afflictions that could ravage your poor body in the Dark Ages and last week Prime Minister David Cameron warned that over-use of antibiotics could see medicine heading back to those times.

But what other medieval maladies did our ancestors have to deal with?

We’ve all heard of the likes of bubonic plague, typhus and smallpox, but here are some of the stranger diseases. Let’s just hope we don’t ever find ourselves with a nasty case of King’s Evil . . .

Water Elf Disease

It sounds like something Bilbo Baggins might pick up after a one-night stand, but this condition was no Lord Of The Rings-style fantasy. Victims developed terrible sores, blackened nails and watery eyes. It was believed at the time to be caused by a stab from a witch, though the real source isn’t known. Treatments involved giving the victim a dozen different plants and herbs and soaking him in ale.

It was then necessary to repeatedly sing: “I have bound on the wounds the best of war bandages, so the wounds neither burn nor burst, nor go further, nor spread, nor jump, nor the wounds increase, nor sores deepen.”

Not likely to trouble the pop charts any time soon. If only the National Elf Service had been around at the time.

The King’s Evil

Probably a good idea to briefly stop eating breakfast while you read this especially if black pudding is on the menu.

This ailment was a result of tuberculosis-related scrofula which affected the lymph nodes. Black masses covered the necks of sufferers, which then multiplied and ruptured resulting in large open sores. What was the cure? Why, getting a monarch to give you a little rub of course!

People believed the royal touch of the king relieved symptoms. The Book Of Common, an Anglican prayer book, included a ceremony in which the king or queen would hand a victim a coin with an angel on it in order to cure the disease. It was said King Henry IV of France touched and cured 1,500 sufferers.

St Anthony’s Fire

Paris wasn’t such a romantic place around the time this stomach-churning disease was at its height.

Parisians were plagued with diabolical sores which encompassed their limbs. The only cure was a trip to St Mary’s church in the city, where Duke Hugh the Great fed the ill with his own holy stores of grain. The victims were quickly cured … but not for long. As soon as they returned home the limb lurgy came back with a vengeance. It turned out the cause was ergot poisoning. Ergot is a fungus that grows on rye in cold, damp conditions. Victims were cured because Big Hugh’s stores of grain were better maintained and not contaminated with ergot. So the moral of his story is always keep your rye in good condition preferably in a French duke’s church.

The Dancing Plague

People afflicted with the disease would dance uncontrollably which means that tipsy aunt at your family wedding may not actually have been doolally, she might have had a weird medieval disease.

An outbreak in Strasbourg in 1518 started with one woman named Frau Troffea. By the end of the week 400 people had joined her. People danced constantly for weeks, dying of heart attacks, strokes or exhaustion. The supposed cure was . . . more dancing! Towns hired musicians to encourage the sick to continue dancing, which is like treating a broken leg by hitting it with a cricket bat. The cause is unknown, though it seems likely that a contagious illness or even a form of mass hysteria brought on by severe stress was to blame.

The Dancing Plague was last seen in the UK in the 1970s when it was contracted by Pan’s People. (NB This is not true. Ed)

The French Disease

During the siege of Naples in 1493 a dreadful new disease spread from the French to the Italians. Sores erupted across the victims’ bodies, which ended up covered in dark green, pussy boils that burned horribly, and the illness led to insanity. It quickly spread throughout Europe and only later was it realised the cause was syphilis, from which the people of Europe had no immunity at the time. However, within 50 years the symptoms had become much milder.

Why? Because it was easy to identify anyone with the disease and you’d have to have pretty low quality control to indulge in a spot of “how’s yer father” with an insane, green, boil-covered pus-bag. So only strains with milder symptoms continued because they weren’t as easy to identify.

Sweating sickness

The disease began very suddenly with a sense of apprehension followed by cold shivers.

While many people these days experience the same symptoms every Monday morning when the alarm goes off for work, there was much more unpleasantness to follow. Victims experienced headache and severe pains in the neck, shoulders and limbs then the hot, sweating stage would begin suddenly, accompanied by delirium, rapid pulse and intense thirst. In this case palpitations and severe pain in the heart were also frequent symptoms.

In the final stages, there was general exhaustion and collapse and an irresistible urge to sleep. It could kill in hours. The mysterious malady was never seen again after 1578, so it is not known what caused it or even exactly what it was.

Ridiculous remedies Some of the more outlandish “cures” for medieval maladies . . .

Rheumatism wear a donkey skin.

Deafness mix the gall of a hare with the grease of a fox. Warm the mixture and place it in the ear.

Baldness smear head with the grease of a fox or bear or with beetle juice.

Jaundice swallow nine lice mixed with ale each morning for a week.

Asthma swallow young frogs.

Gout boil a red-haired dog in oil, add worms, pig’s marrow and herbs. Make a mixture and rub it into the affected area.

Internal bleeding wear a dried toad in a bag around the neck.