Since time immemorial, people have been looking for ways to achieve immortality or at least extend their lives. Legends about finding eternal youth have been passed down from generation to generation throughout the history of mankind.
Scientists of antiquity and the Middle Ages have created many amazing recipes for longevity - from taking a tincture of dried and powdered bats to rubbing the body with tears of virgins. And, judging by the surviving documents, some of the funds gave amazing results.
Cinnabar or meditation?
The earliest available handwritten evidence of the elixir of eternal youth dates back to China in the 1st millennium BC.
According to historical chronicles, Taoist monks possessed the secret of preparing a medicine that could prolong life. The most important component of their preparations was cinnabar, or sulphurous mercury (that is, mercury quenched with sulfur), which, due to its color, was associated with blood.
The manuscripts cite the example of a scientist named Chufu, who took refined cinnabar along with saltpeter for 30 years - and as a result began to look like a teenager, and his hair turned bright red.
By the beginning of the new era, Chinese alchemy was divided into external and internal (that is, recognizing the impact from the outside or from the inside). The first scientific direction proceeded from the fact that immortality can be achieved by taking special drugs, and the second - that it occurs due to the forces of the organism itself, which need to be activated with the help of special breathing exercises, diet, exercise and meditation.
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Gradually, the inner alchemy supplanted the outer. It is known that Genghis Khan, having heard about the Taoist monk Chang Chun, who possessed the secret of eternal youth and lived for 300 years, sent messengers to China to bring the magician to Samarkand with honors. But Chang Chun, who arrived, instead of creating an elixir of immortality for the great khan, began to tell him about the benefits of abstinence and a healthy lifestyle.
Elixir of manure
Longevity advice is also found in the works of ancient Greek, Egyptian and Persian authors. For example, in the writings of Aristotle, Epimenides is mentioned, a priest and poet from the island of Crete, who in 596 BC at the age of 300 was invited to Athens to participate in sacrificial ceremonies, and Pliny the Elder writes about a certain Illyrian who managed to live up to 500 years …
As a medicine, these writings feature anti-aging drinks made from the fruits of eternal youth. The ancient Greek ambrosia and the ancient Iranian haoma were considered such elixirs.
One of the recipes for longevity suggested the following ingredients for a magic remedy: honey from Africa, gentian from Crete, four species of live vipers from Sparta, medicinal roots from Galia, Scythia and Macedonia, and centaur hair.
In addition, the elixirs of youth for the scientists of the Mediterranean of that time were associated with the use of unusual foods - for example, dried snakes or toads, dead mice, as well as excrement from humans and animals.
Breathing young girls
In biblical times, one of the ways to restore youth was considered to be the breathing of children or young girls who lay next to elderly people at night. It is known that the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, constantly surrounded herself with babies at night.
Later, such a technique became widespread in France in the 18th century, where some companies rented out young innocent girls to elderly rich people for the night. The course of treatment was calculated for 24 days, while intimate services were not provided, but as a result of such procedures, the vitality of elderly people increased and even some diseases passed.
Already in our time, studies have shown that human skin is very sensitive to thermal fields emanating from other people - these conclusions are a strong argument in favor of the healing factor of affectionate touch and their use for therapeutic purposes.
Healing Basic Instinct
The moon hare pounds the potion of immortality. Embroidery from the Chinese imperial mantle, 18th century
Intimacy was also recognized by ancient healers as an effective anti-aging agent. An indication of this can be found in drawings relating to the civilizations of India, the Middle East and China that existed more than two thousand years ago, as well as in classical treatises on love, such as "Phaedrus" and "Feast" by Plato (IV century BC), "The Art of Love" by Ovid (1st century), Indian "Kamasutra" (3rd-4th centuries), "Necklace of the Dove" by Ibn Hazma (11th century) and others.
They not only contain information about the technique of love contacts, but primarily focus on the rejuvenating effect of sexual relations. This is also indicated by the works of ancient physicians of antiquity, in particular Hippocrates and Avicenna.
Medicines with elements of cannibalism
Several anti-aging drugs and potions have been associated with blood and flesh - both living people and their remains.
Here is a recipe from an ancient Persian text: feed a red-haired and freckled person with fruits up to 30 years, then lower him into a stone vessel with honey and other compounds and seal him hermetically. After 120 years, the body will turn into a mummy, which must be taken in parts as a means of granting immortality.
The inhabitants of ancient Rome believed that the source of longevity was blood - especially of young people. After the end of the gladiatorial fights, many old people ran into the arena and washed themselves with the blood of the wounded and dead.
Pharmacists of the 12th century used a powder made from mummies stolen from Egypt as a cure for old age. He was credited with magical magical properties - just like other remains of the dead.
The Hungarian Countess Elizaveta Bathory (1560-1614) took baths from the blood of virgins to preserve her youth. According to historians, after the death of the countess, more than 600 skeletons of young girls were found in the basement of her castle.
Burn the black dragon
In the Middle Ages, alchemists were engaged in theories of rejuvenation. Their ideas were based on the works of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, according to which all objects and living things in the Universe, in different proportions, consist of four elements: fire, air, earth and water. Immortality, according to Aristotle's assumption, can give a still unknown fifth element - the quintessence.
The main goal of the alchemists was the search for such an element, also called the philosopher's stone and the elixir of immortality. At the same time, scientists of the Middle Ages believed that, in addition to the gift of eternal life, the philosopher's stone can turn lead or iron into gold and silver, that is, they drew a parallel between the chemical changes of metals and the rejuvenation of the human body - since, in their opinion, metals grow in the womb of the Earth in the same way as a child grows in the womb.
The main material with which medieval scientists worked was mercury. Being both a metal and a liquid, it was perceived as a kind of ideal substance from which, with the addition of sulfur, other metals can be obtained and, most importantly, a philosopher's stone that bestows immortality.
The recipe of the English alchemist George Ripley (XV century), published in his "Book of the Twelve Gates", said that to obtain the elixir of eternal life, mercury should be heated and evaporated in a solution of grape alcohol until it turns into a solid, and then distilled in a clay retort.
Then a black dragon will appear inside the retort, which should have been rubbed on a stone and burned, and the products of combustion should be distilled again. The result is a substance similar to human blood - this is the drink that bestows longevity.
Gold could also be a component of a magic elixir, because it is not subject to chemical changes, which means, according to the logic of alchemists, it personifies immortality.
A recipe, compiled by the personal physician of Pope Boniface VIII (XIII century), has survived: take gold, pearls, sapphires and other precious stones mixed in crushed form, ivory, sandalwood, deer heart, aloe root, musk, and ambergris.
Plus 60 years is not the limit?
The reader probably asks the question: did the recipes of medieval alchemists help anyone? What do we know about the centenarians of that time?
In church books there is a mention of Bishop Allen de Lisle, who died in 1278. It is claimed that he knew the composition of the elixir of immortality - or, at least, significant life extension. When he was already dying of old age in old age, the use of this elixir helped him to prolong his life by another 60 years.
The famous philosopher Roger Bacon, in one of his works, told about a man named Papalius, who spent many years in captivity with the Saracens and there he learned the secret of making a magic potion, using which he lived to be 500 years old.
As you can see, ancient historical documents often mention the elixirs of eternal youth. On the one hand, the effectiveness of such drugs seems unlikely. However, we should not forget that it was alchemy that became the ancestor of modern pharmacology.
Many scientists argue that the human body is designed for a much longer life span - and the fact that people are not yet able to take advantage of this may indicate the loss of recipes for longevity, which were still discovered, but have not reached our time.
Platon VIKTOROV