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Ancient Hangover Cure Discovered In Greek Texts

Posted by samzenpus on from the adjusting-your-humors dept.

An anonymous reader writes with good news for people looking for an old cure for an old problem. Trying to ease a bad hangover? Wearing a necklace made from the leaves of a shrub called Alexandrian laurel would do the job, according to a newly translated Egyptian papyrus. The "drunken headache cure" appears in a 1,900-year-old text written in Greek and was discovered during the ongoing effort to translate more than half a million scraps of papyrus known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Housed at Oxford University's Sackler Library, the enormous collection of texts contains lost gospels, works by Sophocles and other Greek authors, public and personal records and medical treatises dating from the first century AD to the sixth century A.D.

9 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Another text in the collected wisdom by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Another text in this collected wisdom authoritatively cites Aristotle as saying that Pythagorus invented the Scroll Lock key. Literally. It's a little key you lock the scroll with.

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    1. Re:Another text in the collected wisdom by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Funny

      Another text in this collected wisdom authoritatively cites Aristotle as saying that Pythagorus invented the Scroll Lock key. Literally. It's a little key you lock the scroll with.

      No, that was Steven Chu, and I have a citation.

  2. Re:damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why they all went outside to collect leaves of the Alexandrian laurel bush of course.

  3. "... medical treatises" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Any baldness cures in there?

  4. The obvious next step by techno-vampire · · Score: 4, Funny

    The next thing to do, of course, is to test the claim and see if it's true or not. I'm sure that you'll find lots of college students who are willing to give themselves hangovers in the name of science, especially if they're going to be paid for it.

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    1. Re: The obvious next step by icebike · · Score: 4, Funny

      The fact that the cure has been lost for two thousand years suggest that it is already been tried and found wanting.

      Who would forget a cure for a hang over for Pete sake? Especially after writing it down!

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    2. Re: The obvious next step by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Who would forget a cure for a hang over for Pete sake?

      Someone who's been drinking a lot?

  5. Lost Gospels, Sophocles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Lost Gospels, Sophocles, and 1,800 other pages and someone posts about the hangover cure.
    I guess we are living a new dark ages.

  6. Re:Please, BCE/CE, not BC/AD by Guy+Harris · · Score: 4, Funny

    FUCK you and your god damned bullshit.

    Fuck you culture warrior identity politics fuckface asshole prick.

    BC/AD is part of the fucking culture ass grabbing fuck puke.

    FUCK YOU, history changer Goebbels re-writer.

    I vote for renaming them BFC ("Before Fucking Christ") and AFD ("Anno Fucking Domini").