Research indicates that some wellness hacks popular on social media today trace back to medieval manuscripts. An international project examined hundreds of these texts, linking practices like using rose oil for headaches to historical remedies. Items like beef tallow and herbal treatments resonate with TikTok trends, suggesting that interest in alternative medicine transcends time. Historical remedies were often noted alongside unrelated texts, hinting at a consistent cultural preoccupation with health and wellness throughout history.
After examining hundreds of medieval manuscripts and compiling their findings into a catalog, new research sheds fresh light on early medieval medical practices—many of which wouldn't be out of place on TikTok's For You Page.
A lot of things that you see in these manuscripts are actually being promoted online currently as alternative medicine, but they have been around for thousands of years.
One medieval hack involves rubbing a mixture of crushed peach pit and rose oil on the forehead as a cure for headaches. Science now backs this up—a study from 2017 suggests rose oil may help relieve migraine pain.
Many of these medieval health and beauty hacks were found scribbled in the margins of books unrelated to medicine, suggesting a preoccupation with wellness that persisted through the ages.
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