MIRACULOUS UNIVERSAL CURE-ALL
VINEGAR

Though it’s currently having its moment in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop-induced spotlight, vinegar has been used for health applications for literally thousands of years . . . for everything. No, seriously, everything. You’ll see in a minute.

You know what vinegar is, of course, but have you ever thought about how it’s made? No? Well, you’ve already started the paragraph, so let’s just get through this thing. Vinegar (which comes from the French for “sour wine”) is made via the fermentation of ethanol alcohol. Bacteria breaks the alcohol down into different components including acetic acid, which gives vinegar its unique character. That’s a very scientific way of saying vinegar is a weird, thin, stinky soup that gives Easter eggs their crazy color. Or something.

At the risk of veering into TMI territory with vinegar, we’d be remiss in ignoring the culture that creates the vinegar, which is called the “mother,” and congeals into a gross slime at the top of the vinegar unless it’s pasteurized. Some health-food enthusiasts encourage consumption of the vinegar mother, but the science behind that is . . . less than impressive. It’s got a lot of iron apparently, though.

Okay, we’ve hyped you up on this gnarly juice enough, it’s time to list a bunch of things you probably shouldn’t use it to treat even if an old guy assures you it’ll work.

USED TO TREAT:

imagesSORE THROATS

Ancient Greeks were big on oxymel, a blend of four parts honey to one part of any vinegar that was then simmered down. The finished concoction would be kept on hand in order to treat all manner of ailments, but sore throats were a popular target. Oxymel is still commonly used by herbalists today who infuse it with (no points for guessing) herbs.

imagesHEAD WOUNDS

Hippocrates liked to use vinegar for a variety of maladies (sensing a theme?) including ulcers and difficulty breathing, but our favorite was head wounds. A word of warning: It was better for those with too much yellow bile than those with too much black bile (see page 110 for more tips on keeping your humors in balance). Oh, also: It’s better for men because it could irritate a woman’s uterus.

imagesCORPSE CLEANLINESS

Song Ci, considered the father of forensic medical science in China, used his book Collected Cases of Injustice Rectified to advocate for washing hands with a combination of vinegar and sulfur when handling corpses.

imagesHEARTBURN

This is one of those persistent folk remedies you see quoted everywhere, but rest assured, vinegar has not been proven to have any effect on heartburn. Heartburn, by the way, is caused by acid trickling into your esophagus from your stomach, so an acid—like vinegar—might even make it worse.

imagesSCURVY

As far back as the American Revolution, soldiers received rations of vinegar to help prevent scurvy. They even tried this on the Lewis and Clark expedition. You could understand the logical leap that was being made (vinegar is tangy, like citrus fruits), but with no vitamin C, the vinegar wouldn’t have been much help.

imagesWINNING BETS

Okay, this one isn’t medical, but Cleopatra once bet Mark Antony she could eat a meal worth 10,000,000 sesterces ($500,000 these days). She won the bet by dissolving a pearl in vinegar (Pliny said it was “the largest [pearl] in the whole of history” but who knows with that guy) and drinking it. It sounds like an apocryphal story, but it’s all theoretically possible. Try it yourself with your giant pearls!