Necklace Of Alexandrian Laurel Leaves Cures Hangover, Says 1,900-Year-Old Egyptian Papyrus

A 1,900-year-old Egyptian papyrus with text written in Greek offered a cure for hangover. It was discovered as part of ongoing translation work on 500,000 scraps of papyrus called the Oxyrhynchus Papyri.

The Papyri is kept at the Sackler Library of Oxford University in England. Besides cures, it has the works of Sophocles and other Greek writers, lost Gospels, private and personal records and medical treatises beginning with the first century through the sixth century AD.

It was dug in 1898 in a Greco-Roman dump in the Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus, located 100 miles south of Cairo. The town residents then threw their papyrus in the desert, uncovered by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, Oxford archeologists.

Discovery News reports that the cure involves wearing a necklace made from the leaves of a shrub called Alexandrian laurel, also known as Poet’s laurel. However, the leaf of the evergreen Danae racemosa was not really known for its medicinal properties but was used more for crowning famous sportsmen, orators and poets during the Greek and Roman eras.

Discovery News admits it isn’t really known if the necklace of leaves really helped people then who had too much to drink. But a study by Iranian PhD students said that Danae racemosa has use as a spice for cooking and medicinally, with its constituents having antithrombotic, antipatotoxic, antinociceptive and antioxidant properties.

Their research concluded that the leaves’ extract significantly affected the sperm number and percentage of viability and motility of the lab rat. The study used 400 milligrammes of the extract per kilogramme of mouse daily.

The papyrus also had other cures for toothache, hemorrhoids and different eye conditions. To treat eye mucus, a remedy uses copper flakes, antimony oxide, white lead, washed lead dross, starch, dried roses, rain water, gum Arabic, poppy juice and Celtic spikenard which is a plant with known anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.

Vivian Nutton, a professor at University College London, said the translated text, which is the biggest single collection of medical papyri to be published, will come out in a book. It is the 80^th book from the ongoing translation effort.

To contact the writer, email: v.hernandez@ibtimes.com.au