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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.
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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.