How to Cure Bad Breath, 1664

Allegories of the Senses (1651), Wellcome Library"The Breathing is faulty when it stinketh. As when the Breath smells of Excrements or of dead fish, or rotten Cheese or the like... This is troublesome, and better known to the standers by then...

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How to Avoid Melons, 1565

Jacques le Moyne de Morgues, Study of a Melon (c. 1575)"When you consider the small size of the root, and the great size of the stalk, and how close to the ground it is, and that it lies perpetually on the earth, and that it is influenced...

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How to Grow Hair, 1660

Jacob Ferdinand Voet, Portrait of a YoungMan of the Chigi Family (17th c.)"Of Ointments to restore the Hair... The shells of Sea Hedge-hogs burnt, and wrought together with Bears-grease, lay upon the places, being first rubbed... Take of Mouseturd,...

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How to Stop Sneezing, 1664

La methode curative (1561), Wellcome Library“In Neesing, there is a sudden sending forth of Air with more force and noise and a shaking of the whol Body... Palliate the Nostrils, with the Vapor of warm water, and anoynt them with...

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How to Care for Your Hair, 1881

Theatrical Poster, c. 1875 (Library of Congress)“Not less than a hundred strokes a day should be given to a woman’s hair with a good hair-brush, rather hard, but not so unyielding as to tear the hair when it meets with a tangle… Once or twice...

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How to Cure a Snakebite, 1303

British Library, Harley 3244, f. 57r (13th c.)"First, bind the extremity with strong and tight bindings. Second, get an old rooster and pluck its bottom and hold it with its bottom on the bite, and if the rooster dies it is a good sign, because...

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How to Choose Drinking Water, 1528

Gesner, Nomenclator aquatilium animantium (1560)"Thou ought to knowe that clere rennynge Waters that ben nyghe to cytees in pure grounde as small brokes be the best and lyghtest. Water that cometh out of stony erthe where as is moche fumosytees...

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How to Be a Serious Actor, 1699

Lodovico Burnacini, Nani e maschere ridicole (c. 1680)"Laughing on stage at the wrong time is a defect. Hence one must remain unperturbed at all times, because laughter is unbecoming when one is playing a serious role... Also, in comic roles,...

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How to Fake a Nose Injury, 1635

"How to seeme to cut ones nose halfe off. For the effecting of this feate, you must have a knife for the nonce, made with a gap in the midst of the blade, as it is demonstrated in the following figure noted with the letter A. You must conceale...

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