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Your waste-of-oxygen husband has squeezed the toothpaste tube in the middle again? Why don’t you challenge him to a good old-fashioned marital duel and beat his face with a sack full of stones?

In the Middle Ages, married couples sometimes settled their differences through marital duels, which are a far less expensive option than a marriage counselor. Because of the difference in strength between them, the woman was given certain advantages.

In Medieval Justice: Cases and Laws in France, England and Germany, 500-1500, Hunt Janin writes:

In 1228, a woman fought a man at Berne, Switzerland, and soundly defeated him. German law provided that in such a case the man should be armed with three wooden clubs. He was to put be [sic] up to his waist in a three-food-wide hole dug in the ground, with one hand tied behind his back. The woman was to be armed with three rocks, each weighing between one and five pounds, and each one wrapped in cloth. The man could not leave his hole but the woman was free to run around the edge of the pit.
If the man touched the edge of the pit with either his hand or arm, he had to surrender one of his clubs to the judges. If the woman hit him with a rock while he was doing so, she forfeited one of her stones. Bizarre as it may seem to us today, this marital duel was very far from play-acting. For both parties, the penalty for defeat was death. If the woman won, the man was executed; if the man won, the woman was buried alive.

In other drawings the man sits in a tub; in one the two fight with drawn swords. “Judicial duels were common enough in the medieval and early modern period to merit etiquette books,” writes scholar Allison Coudert, “but, as far as I know, nowhere except in the Holy Roman Empire were judicial duels ever considered fitting means to settle marital disputes, and no record of such a duel has been found after 1200, at which time a couple is reported to have fought with the sanction of the civic authorities at Bâle.” The drawings that have survived come from historical treatises of the 15th and 16th centuries.

A couple has actually tried to reproduce such a duel. Here is the video:

1.Dead Mice

The Egyptians applied dead mice paste in their mouth to ease toothache. It is a shame there is no recipe left because, aside from ridding you from toothache, it also sounds delicious. If you had a wart in Elizabethan England, you would cut a mouse in half and apply it to the spot.

2.Sheep liver diagnosis

Just as many contemporary geniuses, the ancient Mesopotamians have very early realized that scientific analysis and diagnosis are nonsense and diagnosed patients not by examining them, but by examining the liver of a sacrificed sheep. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

3.Cutting off the tounge

No, it was not used for curing unruly children who talked back to their parents, but to cure stuttering. Unfortunately, it did not work as well as sheep liver diagnosis and patients continued to stutter while some bled to death.

4.Pulling out the giant tooth worm living inside of you

The benefits of this treatment are pretty obvious.

5.Crocodile dung contraception

Again the ancient Egyptians with their creative solutions for everyday problems. They would insert dry crocodile dung into vaginas, thinking that it will soften when it reaches body temperature and create an impenetrable barrier. I guess pulling out was not an option.

6.Goat testicles

In the early 1900s, John Brinkley became one of the richest doctors in America, despite having no medical qualifications. He claimed he could cure impotence, infertility, and other sexual problems by surgically implanting goat testicles into a man’s scrotum. The surgery had no scientific merit and was extremely dangerous. Many patients died. I wonder if he replace them with goat testicles or did he just add more of them to the scrotum? Could you then have three testicles? I want to have seven. 

7.Farts in a jar

This historical medical treatment is my absolute favorite on th list. I always claimed that farts can heal the body and the soul. Doctors in the middle ages agreed with me and believed that bad smells have therapeutic effects. Some urged people to keep goats in the home. Others recommended flatulence stored in jars. Each time the deadly pestilence appeared in the neighborhood, people were to open the jars and take a whiff. 

8.The doctor telling you that extremely large testicles are not good for you while wearing a pot on his head

What else can he do?