period remedies, treatments, hacks... oh how far we've come!

It is wild to think just how badly women and their periods were treated practically since the beginning of human history. Then again, women were not allowed to legally open their own bank account until 1975, so, sadly, the world is used to playing catch up with women’s rights. 

Recognising the level and quality of access people with periods have to help them on their monthly struggles today compared to hundreds of years ago, really does make you realise just how far we’ve come… 

From the wandering womb and vegetable compounds to unbelievable methods used for stopping your bleeding altogether, humans have proposed (and tried) anything and everything to ‘treat’ periods.

Before the days of daily supplements and Soov sachets, the years between ancient Egypt and the Edwardian era saw some of the most indescribable approaches to the menstrual cycle. 

Taking it wayyyyy back to around 400BCE (what a year) ancient Egyptians created some astonishing menstrual cramp related remedies. The one that caught my eye the most was the method of using Shemshemet. “Shemshemet is the name given to cannabis.” (CANEX, 2021). This would be mixed with honey and put it up the vagina to ‘cool’ the uterus. I’m no doctor, but I can say with some confidence that no uteri were cooled by this technique.

They built one of the seven wonders and thought THAT was ok? 

Moving swiftly on, medieval England was not much better, but instead of cooling cramps, our ancestors were more concerned with stopping the period altogether.

How did they do this? Or try it and fail! They seemed to love grinding up different kinds of plants and herbs, like comfrey, “give it to drink in wine. The flow will quickly stop.” (trans. van Arsdall: 175). As a popular opinion, wine has many powers but sadly, stopping your period is not one of them. 

Another remedy I came across was not so relaxing as drinking wine with some herbs in it… 

Imagine the same method, instead the wine is honey, the plant is a nettle, (yes, a nettle) and there’s no drinking involved, just rubbing it on your hoohah with a piece of wool! Then laying on it. 

How this method got past the idea stage, we’ll never know. If only there were reviews to look back on like there are today… “1/10 for the nettle rub hack I’m afraid! Nettles on your noonoo, not a vibe.”. 

Another (totally not normal) theory added to the list of all the ways we can f@*k with women's bodies, was the ‘wandering womb’.

To explain why a women would fall ill, from a cough to liver problems, the theory was it was all to do with the womb. People, mostly men (of course) believed that due to the womb not being impregnated, it could leave its place in the body (yep) and move around, pressing itself against other organs, therefore causing that organ to fall ill. 

I would love to know the thought behind this. How could they tell the womb was wandering? How was it getting around? Do they think it grew legs? 

It's almost flattering to think that people thought a woman's womb was so powerful that it could get up and have a hot girl walk around the body. 

I didn’t get as far as looking into cures of the wandering womb, though I’m confident they would have been just as mad as the rest of it. 

To really highlight the intellectual prowess of the time, I want to mention Dr Edward Clarke. This is the man behind the claim that “females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.” (Kaplish, L). This was from his book, ‘Sex in Education; or, a Fair Chance for Girls’. 

Just going to leave a little pause here to let that sink in.............................................................. 

Personally, I don’t know anyone that's given it a read and I can confidently say I don’t plan on reading it either. Believe it or not, this kind of thinking was quite popular in the late 19th century (but then, so were chimney sweeps). 

Clarke was a board member at Harvard Medical School “He suggested that the pain girls experienced during their periods was an early sign of damage to the reproductive system, and even if there was no pain during puberty, later in life they could find themselves unable to bear children.” (Kaplish, L). 

Despite multiple challenges of Clarke’s theory, his book ran to 17 editions over 13 years. How? You can find the trials and tribulations of these challenges online...but it doesn’t make for very happy reading.

I think we can all agree that we can be very thankful that these remedies are not the go-to that pop up on Google for us. We recommend our Soov sachets for specific period symptoms, and our Flow multivitamin for period hormone related health.