
Why Did Seventeenth-Century Europeans Eat Mummies? - magda_wang
http://resobscura.blogspot.com/2015/12/why-did-seventeenth-century-europeans.html
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swombat
Saving you the read: superstition. The same reason Chinese people eat powdered
rhino horn today.

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flohofwoe
...or modern, seemingly intelligent Western people believing in homeopathy.
You don't have to look far, superstition and pseudo-science is still as
prevalent as in the 'dark' ages.

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hownottowrite
"Gastroprotective effect of mummy on induced gastric ulcer in rats."
[http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00580-012-1610-7](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00580-012-1610-7)

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michaelsbradley
From the paper you linked to:

"Mummy semi-solid material is extracted from seams in caves and contains a
composition of hydrocarbons, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur. These materials are
used as wound dressings... Some researchers combine known materials, such as
bitumen chemical and spectral analysis, to indicate the presence of
hydrocarbons. Two types of mummy: fat-soluble and organic materials, such as
alcohol chloroform (localised type) and water soluble (type of food), have
been characterised."

I may have misunderstood something, but I don't think the "mummy" of the paper
is the same thing as the "mummies" of the post to which HN links.

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benbreen
You're correct - "mummy" or "mumia" was originally used to describe the resin
created by human remains and embalming materials, but by the 18th century it
had started to shift over to describing various kinds of hydrocarbons. I think
it was because the two actually looked fairly similar - black, resin-y,
bituminous, etc.

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sageikosa
Suddenly, a scene in Futurama makes sense to me.

