Uni reveals traditional hangover ‘cure’

A TRADITIONAL hangover treatment featuring a thyme-infused plaster and a 17th century indigestion remedy have been included in a Christmas and new year wellbeing campaign.

Loughborough University is using its social media accounts and the hashtag £LboroExperts on Twitter to offer information on alcohol’s impact on sleep patterns, and advice on how to coax children into ditching fussy eating habits.

Alongside science-based tips, the campaign has also featured an insight into a purported treatment for indigestion featuring the contents of a sperm whale’s guts.

An easy recipe for so-called surfeit water from the late 17th century has been adapted for the campaign by Dr Sara Read, an expert on early modern literature and medicine.

Dr Read said: “Overindulgence of food and drink was generally known as a surfeiting and was often associated with the Christmas festivities.

“Cures to ease the symptoms of a surfeit - a heavy stomach and vomiting - included a medicated drink, known as a surfeit water.”

One version of the drink listed in a 17th and 18th century manuscript recipe book required two quarts of aqua vitae, infused with damask rose water, white sugar, raisins and ambergris - a substance produced in the digestive systems of whales.

A 1616 guide highlighted by Dr Read, which originated in France, advises making a “frontlet” to be applied to the forehead infused with thyme, maidenhair - a type of fern - and roses.

Dr Read concedes that the remedy “might not be as fortifying as the classic fry-up.”