The Benefits of Human Fat

Imagine that you woke up this morning with lower back pain; that’s not unusual for many people. You make it to your bathroom, pull out your nicely painted apothecary jar of human fat, and rub some into the painful areas. Or you have arthritis and you rub the human fat into your knees. No way, you say? Not if you lived in Europe in the 1600s. Human fat was thought to be able to heal and repair the body.

Not only that, it was thought it was able to heal wounds and promote the growth of connective tissue. How did they come to the idea that fat could help these conditions? There was supposed to be a spiritual quality to human fat that enabled these medicinal qualities, something that wasn’t present in fat from other animals or plants. Yes, they thought some of the dead person’s “vital force” was still there in the harvested fat.

Could there really be any medicinal benefit of human fat? We’ll take a look on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: Christopher Forth PhD. 2019. Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life.