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Tench Slime


Pertinax

this is included to indicate my thoughts on the decline of medicine after the passing away of the systemaic practicality of the Roman age- here we have a Tench (the Doctor Fish, Tinca Tinca).Noted for its action in rubbing mucilaginous slime onto other afflicted fish.In medieval times the prescription of tench slime became a sine qua non of the medical establishment-for a universal array of ailments, indeed like a modern non prescription painkiller.So be careful what you rub on your body!

They taste muddy by the way. :P

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Is it a relative of the trout & salmon?

It is a relative of the Dace-and has an ability to live outside of water in hibernation. It normally lives in silt.The aquarium keeper advised me not to bother eating one.Notice the Perch swimming below, an aggresive little fish.

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Do you happen to know if "tench slime" has any real medicinal value? (though I would imagine the bacteria present on the fish would do more harm than good thus negating any value)

 

Pertinax, you should write up an article on Roman medicine (or have you already? If you have, I've missed it and I'd love to read it!) :lol:

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Do you happen to know if "tench slime" has any real medicinal value? (though I would imagine the bacteria present on the fish would do more harm than good thus negating any value)

 

Pertinax, you should write up an article on Roman medicine (or have you already? If you have, I've missed it and I'd love to read it!) :lol:

Having kept and bred fish ,I would only suggest that perhaps they ( the Tench) were seeking to dislodge external parasites on other fish, all healthy fish are nice and slimey!.Alas the best medicinal use for any fish is to become a wholesome oleagenous meal for a hungry biped.

I am slowly building up to a paper on materia medica of the Roman World but I am working backwards from contemporary herbalism via medieval practice -I need more Roman and Celtic information and artefact knowledge.Cruse is excellent on medicine as an art ( I reviewed her work on the site) but I need to look further to known natural resources.The difficulty is that I am constantly being pulled toward Celtic and Pictish sources .

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