Prehistoric Home Remedies By Chris Clark

Cavemen. They used to be everywhere, but the species got smarter and moved out of those drafty caves and into upscale apartment complexes and suburban wonder lands. Were cavemen all that stupid though? Plenty of civilizations throughout history had their share of novel advances and cavemen are no different. The wheel, the spear, the A/V extension cord (as Blorflax put so well in his most recent article), they've all had profound affects on humanity.

Today we take a look at medicine in the days on saber teeth and rock paintings. Cavemen, though horrifyingly ugly in appearance (amazing how anyone back then ever hooked up) are not known for their advances in medical technology, but after this article there is a slim sliver of a chance that could slightly change a tiny bit of a tad. Let's take a look at what these stone age scientists came up with.

The Scenario: Ow! I cut myself on a sharp twig! I'm slowly bleeding! What is a caveman to do?

 

		Hit it with a Club Clubs, usually made from wood, bone, sheet metal or the occasional plexiglass, were thought to be magical tools that held magical powers. Somewhat like a magician waving a wand, smacking a small cut or scrape with a club at full force was a manner of using the power of the club to "coax" the wound to heal itself. Any intense pain after the club made contact let the injured one know that the power was working and the wound would heal in anywhere from a day to eight months.
		Hit it with a Rock Rocks were extremely versatile tools, capable of performing multiple tasks on food in one easy to use device that never needed sharpening and was dishwasher safe. Needless to say, many cavemen owned rocks. Striking a wound with a rock was the more modern approach to medicine, for those who dismissed the often laughable idea of magic club power. A smack with a rock was recommended in order to show the wound who's boss by hurting it, then proceeding to grunt at it until healed. This form of tough love medicine is still widely used in California and Wisconsin today.
		Place it Before the Monolith A simple idea was born to hit things with other things when one caveman sat before the monolith. Another caveman made the discovery of fire in its shadow, while still another figured out how to get ketchup stains out of leopard skins. The idea behind the monolith as a medical device is to place the afflicted limb before it in hopes that one's immune system would quickly evolve at an exponential rate, healing the wound and making the limb 40% stronger in the process. The remedy did work, but the bill wasn't covered by any insurance provider so few had the money to go through with it.
		Spread Paleosporin on the wound and dress with Mammoth Skin Band-Aids Paleosporin, predecessor to Mesosporin and today's Neosporin, was a mixture of rainwater, ox blood, dirt, and moisturizing alpha and beta hydroxides. The concoction was clinically proven to heal minor cuts and abrasions 1.17 times faster, and with the aid of Mammoth Skin Band-Aids (available in plain hairy, multicolored, or with the characters of Blues Clues) the healing process was shortened even more. Band-Aids came in many sizes, ranging from large to freakishly large.

Looking at modern medicine, I really don't see many differences. You'd think millennia of advancing civilization and technology would have warranted newer and far more modern remedies, but the hard faced truth is that prehistoric remedies have really yet to be approved upon.

We can just all be thankful we don't have to put up with the medical technology they had as single celled organisms living in the primordial ooze. Leeches to draw cytoplasm? "Demons" in the nucleus? Give me a break!

-Chris Clark