The magic of mushrooms
Folk remedies come in many forms: healing waters, invocations of the gods, the extrication of demons, protective charms and coprotherapy (don’t ask). Then there is herbal medicine. This is quite different because you are, at least, in with a chance of survival.
Records of the latter go back so far that they form the largest canon among early writings. The Ebers Papyrus (circa 1550 BC), for example, is a 20m scroll of ‘recipes’ involving (mostly) plants, though magic was intertwined into most cures. Impressively, some of its ancient therapies, such as willow bark for pain relief and honey, to eliminate infections in wounds, were effective.
“Hawthorn’s tasteless berries can be used like sloes in a gin”
The was among the first of the ‘herbals’ that would be produced over the centuries, with later antiquity contributions from the great and the good, such as Dioscorides (), Pliny () and Albertus Magnus ().
