In Australia during the late 1800s, rheumatic patients would gather at whaling stations for a rather unusual form of therapy.
When a whale was captured and brought ashore, it was not merely processed for its valuable oil and baleen; it also served as a makeshift treatment center.
The whalers would cut open the whale, remove sufficient blubber and flesh to create a cavity large enough for a human, and then invite the patient to lie inside the gaping wound.
The following article, published in 1897, tells us about this curious whale cure.
Whale Cure
Professor Bilslik says that in Australia there is a hotel where rheumatic patients congregate.
Whenever a whale has been taken, the patients are rowed over to the works in which the animal is cut up.
The whalers dig a narrow grave in the body, and in this the patient lies for two hours as in a Turkish bath, the decomposing blubber of the whale closing around his body and acting as a huge poultice.
This is known as the “whale cure for rheumatism.”
Source: The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.), 21 Oct. 1897.
