Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that’s interesting, if not pigeon-friendly. I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are:

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that triscuits are the perfect snack if you have ever wanted to eat wicker furniture.

I'm Steve, and I’ve spent the previous 10 days reliving my bachelor days, except that now, I had to take care of two dogs and two cats who really missed my wife and daughter. Feeding them 5 times a day helps. That way they’re always glad to see me.

I'm Jenn, and this week I discovered the perfect example of irony: Eliot Ness, leader of the Untouchables and figurehead fighter for the Prohibition, died relatively young (at 54) and destitute due to...wait for it...complications from alcoholism.

And with that delightful look back at ye-olde things that could kill you miserably… lets dive into a story… if you were a patron. But if you’re not don't worry, we only reference it once and you can always get in on the joke at https://www.patreon.com/iit for only a buck!

‘Tis Time For Another Rousing Round Of Medieval Medical Mediocrity!

* BBC Coverage

* Source Material from Casebooks

* Selected Quotes from CNet Article - Probably the best read btw ;)

* Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman : Astrologer

* Wiki

Today's story comes from the prolific notes of a 17th century "healer," which was, until recently, untranslated.

To mark a decade of the University of Cambridge's Casebook Project - a project to revive old manuscripts - scholars translated the notes of Simon Forman and Richard Napier from shitty-doctor-handwriting-ese to legible English.

"The project opens a wormhole into the grubby and enigmatic world of 17th-century medicine, magic and the occult." ~ Professor Lauren Kassell of Cambridge's History and Philosophy of Science Department.

And so, without further ado, I give you...

Tawdry Tales of Terrible Triage

(age age age age!)

First, dear panel — which is how I shall henceforth refer to you, because fuck it — should you find yourself suffering from malaise circa 1590, what footwear would best ease your weathered, dilapidated, 16-year-old husk of a body?

That's correct: Pigeons.

Image of Simon Forman. He was an ugly, ugly man

It was suggested that patients put the bodies of dead pigeons against their own: "a pigon slitt & applyed to the sole of each foote" for health.

Though today's animal-conscious woo's settle for onions in their socks but nothing beats a little squab-squish eh?

Simon Forman

Back to our tail. Simon Forman, a man already so learned that he needed Oxford not... or he couldn’t hack it even in the "maybe pigeons are shoes" era,either way, he dropped out of Oxford.

Choosing to travel for his indefinite spring break, he found himself enjoying London's famous nightlife. Coupettes (a Champagne Pina Colada Google says people in London stereotypically drink), Spotted Dick, and of course Yersinia pestis,