Remedies from bygone times

DID you know that cobwebs were once used to heal cuts? Or that the Victorians believed that allowing mice to run up the spine would cure a bad back?

Or perhaps you remember layers of goose grease, a red flannel and a liberty bodice to ease coughs and colds?

Chester Grosvenor Museum's new exhibition - Kill or Cure: Medicines & Remedies - which runs until February 22 takes visitors back in time to explore the medicines and remedies of bygone times, be they strange, sensational or perfectly sensible.

Try and imagine a time without newspapers, television dramas set in hospitals or neatly packaged medicines.

It was a time when ignorance and/or illiteracy meant most people failed to understand exactly what made them ill, never mind what could make it better.

Add in the serious diseases of history, be they the more distant plagues or more recent influenza epidemics, and you get a climate of fear and uncertainty and a willingness to try almost anything to protect that precious commodity of good health.

Using original objects, fun interactives and oral histories, this exhibition explores the often astounding but always ingenious ways that we have sought to cure ourselves of our ills.
Entry to the exhibition is free and the gallery is fully accessible.