Medieval cure-all may actually have spread disease

From Philadelphia, at a meeting of the Association of American Geographers

One of medieval Europe’s most popular concoctions for treating disease might instead have been an agent of germ transmission, new research suggests.

In the Middle Ages, merchants in apothecaries often dispensed mumia, or bitumen, a black, asphaltlike substance thought at the time to alleviate ailments as diverse as epilepsy, gout, and plague.