In an old blog post about treating urinary conditions we included a remedy made of snail shells. Mary Fleetwood’s sunburn recipe also contained snail. Snails perhaps because they were easily accessible animal products, were a regular ingredient in early modern medicines.

Snail Water

Snail water was a remedy for a range of conditions including green wounds, fits and convulsions. The recipe recorded in the recipe book of Elizabeth Sleigh and Felicia Whitfeld explains the complex method for making it.

Take shell snailes, take them out of their shells and wash them in white wine & take out [the] green stuff [that] is within them, take a quart of snails so prepared, & as much green angelico stalks sliced thin, 2 handfuls of Jerusalem cowslips, & 2 handfulls of coltsfoot, &a good capon all the flesh must be cut from the bones & cut into bits, but no fat, put all these into new milk, let the milk cover these things about two inches, let them steep twelve hours & still them in a cold still with a gentle fire, put up your still close, drink this with white sugarcandy and rose water. lay hartstoung in [the] bottom of your still. 1

Recipes for Snail water varied considerably. Another recipe called for the snails for be put into a gallon of milk, with balm, mint, hyssop, dates, figs, and a pound of raisins.2

Fumes, Syrups, & Poultices

In addition to snail water these small gastropods appeared in numerous other remedies including fumes, syrups, and salves. William Salmon recommended a fumigation made of ‘Snail Skins’ for women who suffered from a uterine prolapse, or, as he terms it, ‘the Falling of the Womb’.3 Alternatively, Robert Boyle recommended applying a ‘Reddish, or at least a blackish Snail of that Sort that has no House or Shell’ beaten to a paste to the warts on the fingers.3

Another suggestion appeared in Mary Kettilby’s published collection of recipes. A syrup for those with consumption. This was made from a score of shell-snails, washed, cleaned and with the shells cracked. These were placed in a jelly-bag with a half a pound of white sugar-candy. This mixture was left to hang for twelve hours until all the sugar-candy melted and dropped through the bag. Whenever the patient felt a cough coming on they were to take twelve spoonfuls of the syrup.4

Bread & Cream

In addition to these medical properties, early modern writers also suggested that snails were useful in culinary preparations. Nicolas Lémery’s New Curiosities included a recipe for ‘A Sort of Bread of which a Mouthful can maintain a Man Eight Days without eating any This else’. This was made by taking ‘a quantity of Snails, and mak[ing] them void of their Sliminess, then dry[ing] and reduc[ing] them to a fine Powder, of which make a Loaf’. This was followed by the suggestion that to make cream someone should hang a red snail by a thread in a vessel of milk. Everything above the snail would apparently turn into cream.

I will try to remember that snails had so many positive uses and benefits the next time I am removing them from my patio pot plants.

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Wellcome Library, MS 751/24 Mary Kettilby, A collection of above three hundred receipts in cookery, physick and surgery; for the use of all good wives, tender mothers, and careful nurses. … (London, 1728), p.119. Robert Boyle, Medicinal experiments: or, a collection of choice and safe remedies for the most part simple, and easily prepar’d: very useful in families, and … (London, 1712), p. 283. William Salmon, Aristotle’s compleat and experienc’d midwife; in two parts. I. A guide for child-bearing women, … II. Proper and safe remedies for the curing … (London, 1730), pp. 140. Kettilby, A collection of above three hundred receipts, p. 178. Nicolas Lémery, New curiosities in art and nature: or, a collection of the most valuable secrets in all arts and sciences; as appears by the contents. Composed … (London, 1711), p. 122. Ibid.

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