17^th Century animal testing and the use of animals in recipes

During the seventeenth century, animals were used in recipes in a variety of ways. They were eaten and used in medicines. Every part of the animal was used including its dung and grease. During this period animals were used in a number of ways and cruelty to animals was common. Cats and dogs were regularly tortured and sometimes skinned for their fur. Society believed that animals, domestic and wild, existed for the use of humans. Animals were not only used for their body parts as ingredients but also for fur. They were also used for entertainment such as animal baiting and fighting.

Margaret Baker, mentioned in one of her recipes that she used goats to experiment on. The recipe was for an ulceration of the liver and lungs and it appears that Baker had tried the recipe on goats before she used it herself. She wrote “for this I have proued in goats troubled with a cartayne infirmitie called Bissole of the goate”. (Baker, 18v) She claimed that she “made it into pouder and gave it to the goats with salt and for the most part they weare helpe and that I cured a number of men and women of that desease.” (Baker, 18v) However, it is unlikely a lay person, especially a woman would have experimented in this way. It would appear that Baker has taken the work of Italian physician Leonard Phioravant, in his work 'An Extract Collection of the choicest and most rare experiments and secrets in physick and chyrugery. (1659) Baker was obviously interested in experimental approaches to medicine and this may have been why she included Phiroavant's experiment in her recipe book for future consultation. Baker obviously trusted that if the goats were mostly cured then it would also help humans.

Animal Testing

Testing medicines on animals goes back to the Ancient Greeks in the 4^th and 3^rd centuries BC with Aristotle and Erasistratus among the first to experiment on living animals. Galen, a physician in 2^nd century Rome dissected pigs and goats and is known as the Father of Vivisection (West 2005)

In the 1660s Robert Boyle conducted many experiments with a pump to investigate the effects of rarefied air. He listed two experiments on living animals; ‘Experiment 40’ tested the ability of insects to fly under reduced air pressure and ‘Experiment 41’ which demonstrated the reliance of living creatures on the air for survival. Boyle used a large variety of animals in his experiments including birds, mice, eels, snails and flies. (West 2005)

Renè Descartes (1596-1650), a French philosopher argued that ‘unlike other creatures man has a soul which enables him to reason, animals do not’. He believed therefore that animals did not feel pain since pain could exist only with understanding, which animals lack.’ (Guerrini 392) Descartes' belief may well have been the belief of many others and this would explain why Margaret Baker uses so many animals in such a barbaric way in her recipes.

Live animal experiments required specialized skills and an audience to verify experimental results. The Royal Society’s Journal Book details many public vivisections and their results. Thomas Birch recorded approximately ninety vivisections, thirty one of which were performed before the assembled society in the years 1664-1668. (Guerrini 395)

Animal to animal blood transfusions were first attempted in the mid 1660’s. Mortality among the experimented animals was high. The donors in the earlier attempts bled to death. (Guerrini 403) Diarists John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys witnessed several experiments however neither of them expressed an opinion that the experiments were cruel or painful. (Guerrini 403) In June 1667 the first animal to human transfusion was first tried in Paris. It was believed that animal blood would have superior therapeutic value to the blood of a healthy human. It was believed that temperate living animals produced purer, more wholesome blood than humans and by analogy with nutrition, animal blood would be more easily assimilated than human. (Guerrini 403)

MEDICINE

Baker also uses animals in her medicines as ingredients. As a ‘precious medicine for aches’ she suggests ‘take a whelpe that sucketh ye fatter the better and drowne him in water till he be deade – then take out his guttes cleane and fill his belly with black soope then put him on a spite and roste him well’ (Baker 68r). After the puppy has been roasted Baker instructs to take the ‘droppings and place in a vessel and keep it well; then lay on the patient and make them sweat and use the droppings to anoint the patient five to six times a day. There is no evidence within Baker’s recipes to suggest why she believed that the recipe would work, where the recipe came from or if she had tried it herself. However, many did believe that the inclusion of animals in medicines did work. http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2015/01/the-puppy-water-and-other-early-modern-canine-recipes.html

To consult a physician during this period could have cost a lot of money hence why many practiced home remedies. There were occasionally doctors such as Hans Sloane who treated the poor for free but as a rule there was a charge to see doctors. (Hawkins, 2010) Therefore home-made treatments were very common. It was normal that most householders had at least a basic knowledge of medicine and the ability to make remedies using only herbs and materials that could be gathered locally including animals.

Baker used every part of the animal in her recipes. Horse and pig dung, animal fat and grease were used as ingredients in many of her recipes for both food and medicine. Barrow Hog dung was used to stop nose bleeds. Animal grease was used for a recipe for ‘Asprayne’ ‘Take a pennyworth of barrowe hoggs grease and your owne urine; and boyle it in a pipkin with a piece of scarlett cloth; and soe binde ye cloth about ye place as hot as you can suffer itt.’ (Baker 40v) She also makes use of insects, using fried earth worms as an ointment for aches. For a cure for green sickness she uses great worms, soaked in white wine, then cooked in an oven and then beaten into powder. The powder was then to be drunk with white wine every morning and then two hourly. (Baker 58v)

Similarly if a physician was consulted during this period, many of the treatments would include insects or animals such as leeches which had been used for thousands of years as it was believed that most illnesses were caused by excess of blood. Maggots were used to remove dead flesh, mice to cure gout, earache or even to clean teeth, ferrets and woodlice to treat whooping cough, spider’s webs to stop a nosebleed and spiders to cure a fever. ((http://www.baus.org.uk/museum/82/17th_century_medicine))

Although Baker uses many animals in her recipes she also includes recipes which strive to cure animal illnesses. There is a recipe for a medicine for ‘a mangy horse or doge.’(Baker, 83v) It would have been in the best interest of the owners of the animals to cure the mange as it would have spread and affected other animals which would have had a serious consequence.

COOKING

Roast beef became part of British identity. Cattle were slaughtered at the beginning of winter when the fodder ran out therefore the meat had to be salted to preserve it through the winter. However, by the beginning of the eighteenth century a new winter feeding method for the cattle was established enabling fresh meat to be available all year round. ((http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/texts/cook/1600s2/1600s2.html A wide range of fish was eaten, including oysters. Mutton and black pudding were also common. Rabbit, pheasant, pigeon and partridge were all popular meat and could be obtained all year round. (Cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/33-341-Stuarts-Food-facts.html)

Recipe books and housewife books were popular during this period. Hannah Glasses’ The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1748) advises the reader how to cook each animal from beef to larks to tongues. It also explains what each cut of meat is called. For example ‘the saddle of mutton (which is the two loins) and the chine (which is the two necks)’ (Glasse, 2). Glasse also advises which part of the animal to buy from markets. Many of the manuscript cookery books were written by wealthy women, who would have had regular access to animals to use in ingredients. Although animals were important in family lives not every family would have had animals living with them to use as ingredients. Some rural households would have owned horses and cattle to work the fields but not necessarily to eat. Peasants would not have had outbuildings and animals would therefore live in the house with them. The entire family would have lived in one or two rooms with their livestock living with them. They would usually own a sheep and sometimes a cow. The milk, cheese, wool and occasionally meat that these animals provided would have been crucial to keep the family fed. The death of a family's animal could be an economic disaster for the family, so it was as important to shelter the animal as it was to house the family. (Bucholz & Newton, p20).

No part of the animal ever went to waste when cooking. Food took up four fifths of an ordinary family’s budget therefore it was ensured that all of the animal was used. Blood was used in soups and tripe was an ingredient in stews, soups or pies. Even parts of the animal which still looked like the animal were eaten such as a calf’s head. The eyes, tongue and cheeks of animals would also be eaten. The Countess of Kent, Elizabeth Grey wrote in A True Gentlewoman's Delight (1653) a recipe for 'Calves Head cooked and garnished with oysters'. The recipe states

'To boyle a calves head with oysters. Take the head, and boyle it with water and salt and a little white wine or verjuyce and when it is almost enough then cut some oysters and mingle them together and a blade or two of mace, a little pepper and salt and a little liquor of the oysters then put it together and put it in the calves head and the largest oysters upon it and a slit of lemon and barberries.' (Grey, 1653).

Baker also uses animal parts to help prepare her food. It was only after the invention of the muslin cloth for steaming that the use of animal guts to steam puddings stopped. ((http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/texts/cook/1600s2/1600s2.html) )Puddings may be seen as the multiple descendants of a Roman sausage. A Roman sausage was not dissimilar to haggis. In the Middle Ages blood sausages or black pudding as it was later known, was joined by the white pudding which was also made in a stomach lining or a sausage skin. Baker includes a recipe for 'Greate Sassages or bowdeinges after the Bolonia fation' (Baker,53r), 'To make sarsages' and 'to make ye best sarsages' (Baker, 97r) in her recipe book.

Although to the 21^st Century reader Baker’s use of animals in her recipes seems cruel, society saw animals in a different way to which we do today. If we have animals living in our homes they are usually much loved pets with their individual personalities. However in the 17^th century, society believed that animals did not have a soul and existed just for human’s use. The fact that they were eaten, used for fur, used for working the fields shows that they were an important addition to households but not in the same way as today. They were a necessity to the seventeenth century household to feed and cure.

Tracey Cornish

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Baker, Margaret. Receipt Book of Margaret Baker, ca. 1675, MS V.a.619. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.

Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. London, 1748.

Grey, Elizabeth. The True Gentlewoman's Delight. London, 1653.

Secondary Sources

(http://www.baus.org.uk/museum/82/17th_century_medicine). n.d. 29th April 2017.

(http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/texts/cook/1600s2/1600s2.html) . n.d. 28th April 2017.

(http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/texts/cook/1600s2/1600s2.html) . n.d. 28th April 2017.

Bucholz ,Robert & Key, Newton. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester , 2013.

Cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/33-341-Stuarts-Food-facts.html. n.d. 29th April 2017.

Guerrini, Anita. "The Ethnics of Animal Experimentation in 17th century England." Journal of the History of Ideas vol 50 no 3 (1989): 392.

Hawkins, Stanley A. "Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1735): His Life and Legacy". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2938984/

Thomas, Keith. Man and the Natural World 1500-1800. London, 1984.

West, J.B. "Robert Boyle's landmark book of 1660 with the first experiments on rarified air". Journal of Applied Physiology. 98 (1): 31–39. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00759.2004. PMID 1559130. (2005).