ABSTRACT
From beginning to end of the eighteenth century, human fat remained one of the most enduring corpse medicines in both England, Germany and France. Whilst human fat was frequently recommended by physicians, the involvement of eighteenth-century surgeons broadly recalls the early uses of corpse medicine in Elizabethan England, when it was chiefly promoted by men such as Banister, Clowes and Hall. Evidence derived from orthodox medical sources show that corpse medicines were fairly widespread in the eighteenth century. Often, as people see, the antipathy of reason to such alleged superstitions is so great that it prompts the ultimately irrational rewriting of medical history. This desire to push the disgusting thing away from people is also seen, in more systematic form, in the way that the eighteenth century seeks to artificially distance itself from corpse medicine. By the late eighteenth century, corpse medicine was already 'getting medieval'; and in some people's view, it had not shifted beyond the status come 2004.
