Condiments That Used To Be Considered Medicinal

Mustard and vinegar also provided good health ... or so people thought, according to Tim Lambert in his "A Brief History of Condiments," posted at Local Histories.  In the sixth century BCE, the great mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras believed mustard could help scorpion stings. Hippocrates used the substance in medicines and made a poultice of it when treating toothaches. Hektoen International, a journal of medical humanities, said that while there is no certain connection to mustard use improving health conditions, the seeds do contain manganese, iron, magnesium and selenium — minerals with anti-inflammatory abilities.

The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, used vinegar in wound treatment around 420 BCE, and Sung Tse, who created forensic medicine in the 10th century, believed washing hands in a mixture of sulfur and vinegar prevented infections incurred by autopsies, wrote Dr. Carol S. Johnston and Cindy A. Gaas in "Vinegar: Medicinal Uses and Antiglycemic Effect" in MedGenMed, posted at the US National Library of Medicine. Other conditions such as dropsy, poison ivy, coup, and more used vinegar as a potential cure.