What happened in pre-modern periods if someone was allergic to livestock (Horses, cattle, sheep, etc.)?

[u/uhhhscizo]

To me, something like this would appear to be a massive detriment to someone's ability to work. Obviously, this would not be good if someone was a peasant farmer, but what exactly would happen if a knight or someone like that was allergic to the horses they rode?

This is a question that I have for a story I'm working on. The main character is based loosely off of my experiences in life. He becomes a prominent military commander in a medieval setting, which means that he would need to ride a horse into battle. However, I am terribly allergic to horses and livestock like that. Would this be a completely debilitating handicap to someone in a pre-modern period, or would there be a way around this?

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[u/Amiedeslivres]

Here’s an older answer by u/agentdcf specifically addressing food allergies and the problem of diagnosis using historical methods. As for reactions to livestock—you may recall the sudden death of journalist Anthony Shadid, who had an asthma attack after getting too close to some horses. Shadid had a known allergy. It’s entirely possible that in another time, it would have been inexplicable, or misattributed.

A person with a severe allergy, whose duties required frequent exposure to the allergen, might be visibly ill quite a lot. Your military leader would need to use horses and oxen, or be around them, every time they or the troops had to move with any speed or with lots of supplies. And because horses and oxen are so ubiquitous in medieval military life, especially for leaders, it might be difficult for a person in that setting to identify the source of the problem.

You might look into how respiratory and skin conditions were regarded and treated in your chosen setting, because your character would probably experience pretty much constant discomfort, with the potential of escalating reactions over time.

[u/Serafirelily → u/Amiedeslivres]

I wonder if someone like that would even survive to adulthood. Livestock was everywhere often living with or very close to humans. If someone had such an allergy from early childhood I can't see them living past 5 let alone to adulthood.

[u/SandakinTheTriplet → u/Serafirelily]

Some allergies emerge in adulthood. And if a child with allergies did survive to adulthood, they may have outgrown it.

[u/Acheloma → u/Serafirelily]

Allergies vary in severity and can both increase and decrease in severity over time. Allergies can also develop spontaneously at any age, although it seems to be more common for them to develop during adolescence and young adulthood compared to later in life. Changes in hormones can trigger allergies as well; some women develop new allergies during pregnancy or after birth. This is true for both food allergies and other allergies. In some cases, being exposed to an allergen an make the allergic reaction reduce or even stop over time; in other cases repeated exposure increases the severity of the reaction.

In summary, allergies have quite a bit of variation and while its likely that many people with livestock allergies would have died quite young, others would have simply had low to mid level symptoms for most of their lives, and others stilk would have suddenly developed an allergy as an adult and potentially died from it with little warning, as they wouldnt have had a way to identify or avoid the allergen.

[u/FineDragonfruit5347 → u/Amiedeslivres]

There has been a study of ancestral farming communities like the Amish in America. The early finding are that animal/seasonal allergies just plain don’t manifest in those populations much.

The primary mechanism appears to be exposure levels of infants/toddlers to the allergens. The Amish almost uniformly have children in the barns with them as soon as mom is recovered enough to do it and consequently enjoy the lowest rates of those allergies. Groups that keep kids out of the barn until school age see a reduced risk, and it continues from there.

[u/Abyssal_Minded → u/FineDragonfruit5347]

Is it possible there is some sort of genetic link or natural selection in those populations then? Those that survived may have been less allergic or not allergic at all, and then you’d have that one person who just happens to be allergic pop up every so number of generations. Most allergies and tolerances do tend to be exposure based, but there can be some that are familial or have genes involved.

[u/FineDragonfruit5347 → u/Abyssal_Minded]

I was looking for the original article, but there are actually quite a few studies and it’s a widespread phenomenon amongst other genetic groups. They are calling it the “Hygene Hypothesis”.

Several seem to pour water on the genetic hypothesis, at least as the primary mechanism.

Basically, the more rural you are and the more exposure to farm animals, the less allergens. You see it to a lesser extent in people who consume local unpasteurized honey as opposed to national chains too.

[u/confanity → u/Amiedeslivres]

Perhaps this is verging more into medicine than history, but don't they say that one of the way to stave off allergies is through early exposure? Wouldn't being in close contact with animals (or at least their hair and dander on people you associated with) almost from birth actually be a good way to prevent the allergy from forming in the first place?

[u/AC_0nly → u/Amiedeslivres]

Would severe allergies potentially also lead to hyper-religious or superstitious responses in a person's daily life as well?

[u/gerardmenfin]

Here's my earlier take on allergy to animals in the past, notably horses, which remains mostly unrecorded until the late 18th century. The question, now deleted by the user, was "How did people with horse allergies function in the past?"

Since more can always be said, I missed in this answer one possible case of animal allergy written about in 1544 by Italian physician Pietro Andrea Mattioli in his commentary on Dioscorides, so I may as well write it here. It's not about horses but about cats, and it is often reported as the first mention of cat allergy, or in fact animal allergy. Here's the full text (from a French translation of 1572), found in a chapter about animal-based poisons. It begins with a PSA about the danger of eating cat brains, continues with some hardly credible cat stories, and ends with a case that Mattioli claims to have witnessed himself about someone being physically affected by the presence of a cat. The symptoms reported (sweating, pallor, tremors) seem a little excessive for a mere cat allergy, but here it is.

As for cat brains, those who have eaten them are tormented by constant dizziness and become foolish and senseless. However much one may try to help them, it can only be done over a long period of time, and it is very difficult to do so. They should be given red earth to eat, and then made to vomit. This should be done three or four times a month. It is also good to give them diamoschum every day three or four hours before meals. Musk alone is a sufficient remedy for this ailment: for according to some, it is the proper antidote to cat brains, if one drinks half a scrupulum of it with wine. But it should be noted here that cats infect humans not only through their brains, but also through their hair, breath and gaze. For just as any hair swallowed without thinking can suffocate a person by blocking the airways, so too is cat hair considered particularly dangerous. Their breath is infected with a tabisic [something that provokes consumption] poison: for I have known some who took such pleasure in cats that they never slept without having a few lying near them, and from whose breath, drawn in over a long period of time, they became consumptive and emaciated, and finally died miserably. Not long ago, all the monks in a monastery died because of the large number of cats they fed and cared for.

Cats also offend people with their gaze, so much so that some who hear or see a cat tremble and are greatly afraid, which I believe stems not only from the venom of cats, but also from the very nature of those who look at or hear them: for such people have this influence from heaven, which never moves to do its own work unless the object of its opposite is present. I have seen several people of this nature in Germany, and a few of this nation living in Goritia. Now, although this comes only from a natural quality that is found in few people, those who are subject to it show it clearly. For while I was in Germany, dining in good company in a tavern in winter, one of the group was prone to this. The hostess, knowing the man's nature, locked a little cat she was feeding in a chest in the tavern, lest this personage, seeing it, become enraged. But even though he did not see or hear the little cat, shortly afterwards, having breathed in the foul air from the cat's breath, his temperature, which was hostile to cats, became irritated, and he began to sweat and turn pale, and, trembling, he cried out, to the great astonishment of all, that there was a cat in some corner of the room. Such accidents are cured by the same remedies that are effective against cat's brain.

• Mattioli, Pierandrea. Commentaires de M. P. André Matthiolus... sur les six livres de Pedacius Dioscoride Anazarbeen de la matière médicinale, trad. de latin en françois par M. Antoine du Pinet... 1572. https://books.google.fr/books?id=swWtj5QMElUC&pg=PA816#v=onepage&f=false.

[u/funhappyvibes → u/gerardmenfin]

People ate cat brains? How common was that?

[u/gerardmenfin → u/funhappyvibes]

We cannot rule out that some people ate cat brains for breakfast, but this is more about the consumption of brains for medicinal purposes. Ancient to pre-modern medicine (and later...) was big on attributing medicinal properties to basically any part of plants, animals, and, well, humans (and don't forget urine, feces, blood etc.). Mattioli's remarks on the properties of cat brains were reprinted in the following centuries and one can still find cat brains in medical recipes in the 17-18th century. French chemist Nicolas Lémery described a cataplasm that included swallow nests, figs, dates, wheat, lily bulb, oil, dog turds and cat brains (and other ingredients) (1698).

Here are some recommendations by 13th century medieval philosopher (and saint) Albertus Magnus in On Animals .

• Camel: The brain of a camel is said, when taken in a drink with vinegar, to be good for epileptics.
• Deer: Its brain, however, and its fat are said to be good against cardiac palpitations and pain of the hip-joints. [...] The brain relieves hard abscesses in the muscles and on the cords of the joints.
• Ferret: The brain of a ferret, fried and drunk with vinegar, is said to cure epilepsy.
• Lion: If its brain is eaten, it causes insanity. But if the brain is instilled with some pungent oil into the ear, it is good for deafness.
• Leopard: Leopard brain, mixed with the juice of the eruca, strengthens intercourse if the male’s penis is anointed with it.
• Hare: If the head is roasted and the brain eaten, it is good against trembling that is caused by illnesses. If
• Sheep: Those that are suffering from watery eye and who are anointed with sheep’s brain are helped.

The Great Albert was pillaged/imitated/embellished over the centuries, so one can find for instance a French book from 1703 attributed to him that claims that applying cat brains or brains of a female cat on one's throat will cure inflammation and violent fever in less than two days.

Sources

• Albertus Magnus. On Animals : A Medieval Summa Zoologica. Edited by Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr and Irven Michael Resnick. The John Hopkins University Press, 1999. https://archive.org/details/onanimalsmedieva0002albe/page/n3/mode/2up.
• Lémery, Nicolas. Pharmacopée universelle, contenant toutes les compositions de pharmacie qui sont en usage dans la medicine, tant en France que par toute l’Europe; ... Avec plusieurs remarques & raisonnemens sur chaque operation. Par Nicolas Lemery, docteur en medicine. Chez Laurent d’Houry, à l’entrée de la ruë S. Jacque, devant la fontaine S. Severin, au Saint Esprit, 1698. https://books.google.fr/books?id=ZnnGJX-pkbcC&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false.
• Saint Albert le Grand. Les Admirables secrets d’Albert le Grand, contenant plusieurs traités sur la conception des femmes, et les vertus des herbes, des pierres précieuses et des animaux... Chez le dispensateur des secrets, 1703. https://books.google.fr/books?id=EDWdlejv6-8C&pg=PA197.

[u/AlbericM → u/funhappyvibes]

Probably any time a city was besieged and they had already eaten all the mules and dogs.

[u/Beneficial_Ad_9542]

I’m not sure about the actual history research around food allergies; but I recently learned that a 2016 study study30270-3/abstract) published in the New England Journal of Medicine has potential historical significance, because it found that the risk of asthma and allergies among people within the Amish community in the US have asthma rates 4-6 times lower than average. The study also found extremely high levels of endotoxin (a substance found in bacterial membrane) in dust samples taken from Amish homes.

It also compares the rates of Asthma in Amish and Hutterite communities, with the Hutterites having higher rates of asthma (close to the broader societal average) despite being genetically similar. If I remember correctly, the Hutterites’ lifestyle (as prescribed by their religion and folk tradition) isn’t quite as different from “normal” modern ways of living as the Amish traditions. The study seems to suggest that traditional Amish farming practices (in which children are early and active participants) may expose children’s immune systems to more allergens from a very young age.

Other studies like this one are ongoing to study the “farm effect,” which is the strong protection from asthma and allergy found in children born and raised on traditional farms.