top of page
Search

The History of the “Whale Cure” for Rheumatism

  • Writer: FibonacciMD
    FibonacciMD
  • May 27
  • 3 min read

Updated: May 27

by Stuart M. Caplen, MD


Rheumatism sufferer in the carcass of a whale in Twofold Bay, town of Eden, Australia.
Rheumatism sufferer in the carcass of a whale in Twofold Bay, town of Eden, Australia.

In March 1896, an article in the Australian Pall Mall Gazette described a new cure for rheumatism.  It was republished in The New York Times in 1897.  It related that two-to-three years previously, “a gentleman of convivial habits but grievously affected by rheumatism” was taking an after-dinner stroll along an Australian beach.  He and his friends passed a whaling station where there was a dead whale partially cut open.  The paper noted that “our hilarious friend” decided to plunge into “the huge mountain of decomposing blubber.”  His friends tried valiantly to rescue him but could not.  As the heat and smell were too great, they decided to wait until he sobered up enough to make his own way out.  He “found himself so comfortable that he did not emerge for over two hours.”  When he did, he was “quite sober,” and his rheumatism of many years’ duration had totally disappeared.  (Rheumatism is not a specific disease, but rather a general term used to describe any condition causing pain or inflammation in the muscles, joints, or fibrous tissue of the body.)


Word of this miraculous event, now known as the “whale cure,” spread rapidly.  The town of Eden, on the shores of Twofold Bay, became a haven for patients with rheumatism.  The sufferers congregated at a local hotel that benefited from the large influx of guests seeking a cure.  When a fresh whale was caught, the patients took a rowboat over to the whaling station.  The whalers made holes in the whale’s carcass which the patients then immersed themselves “as in a Turkish bath” for two hours with the blubber closing around their bodies.  The whalers did not charge for this service and worked on other parts of the whale while the sufferers partook of the cure.  The article also reported that “many are the cases of complete recovery of people who have hardly been able to use their limbs for years.”


It was later suggested that if the sufferer could remain in the whale for 30 hours the cure would last for over a year.  It was believed the heat and gases produced by the dead whale were the reason the cure worked.

New York Times - March 7, 1897


In an 1886 article in the Sydney Bulletin, a cured sufferer who stated “he was helpless with rheumatism” wrote of the horrific heat and smell during the two hours he was inside the whale.  He carried an odor that lingered for a number of days and wrote “men I considered true brothers held their noses and bolted,” when he came near them.  Part of his back and his fingernails and toenails had turned black after the treatment.  However, he said that for 12 months his rheumatism was cured, only to return after that period, “as bad as ever”.  He reported, “The smell has never left me : that dead whale still haunts me.“


The whale cure started falling out of popularity after about a decade or so due to a decline in whaling activities, a change in public sentiment as medical science advanced, as well as concerns about the smell and hygiene of the treatment.



Illustration of rheumatism sufferers going to Eden for the “whale cure”





References

Comments

bottom of page