Doctors have long known that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
But in 'corpse medicine' - the idea of treating ills by swallowing body parts and fluids - a little sweetener wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.
A list of weird and but not very wonderful cannibalistic concoctions reveals treatments made of human organs, salves of human fat, and the ground-up remains of embalmed bodies.
Not available on the NHS: Some doctors in the 17th century would have proscribed these unidentified mummies as a treatment
Not nice. But it hasn't stopped doctors from the field of corpse medicine prescribing these down the ages to treat a host of ailments and promote good health.
MUMMY POWDER: Used from the 12th to the 17th century to cure everything from headaches to stomach ulcers. It purported to be the ground up remains of the ancient kings of Egypt - but was more likely to be the powdered bones of commoners dug up from the nearest graveyard.
MELLIFIED MAN: Chinese recipe from 1597 to kill a volunteer by feeding him honey for a month, bury him in coffin filled with honey and digging him up after 100 years to eat sweet flesh. Said to cure broken bones.
THE KING'S DROPS: Popularised by Charles II, the liquid was made from powdered skull and designed to promote vigor.
GLADIATORS' LIVER AND BLOOD: Thought by Romans to be a cure for epilepsy. Regular supply thanks to bloodthirsty sport.
SPIRIT OF HUMAN BRAINS: During the 17th century, some British doctors prescribed the distilled brain pulp of a violently killed man to cure all cranial ills.
SWEAT OF A DYING MAN: Also in the 1800s, the perspiration of the terminally ill was thought to curehemorrhoids.
HUMAN FAT 'OINTMENTS': Said to help ease joint pain and muscle cramps, the fat of our dead was harvested and mixed with beer. The practice is believed to have continued in Holland until the 1920s.
TAI BAO CAPSULES: Recently, the powdered remains of babies - thought to be those aborted or stillborn in China - were found inside capsules in South Korea. They are purported to be a cure for asthma.
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