Oh, Jost Amman, you strange man.

[msmcknittington]

Can anyone explain to me what's going on in this picture? It appears that the woman sitting in front of the bathhouse proprietor (the dude standing up while wearing bikini briefs) has large knobs stuck on her shoulders. I'd read the text that is supposedly about the picture, but it appears to be about an apple seller, and . . . there are no apples!

And the blacksmith is less burly than the cook. What kind of place was Germany in the 16th century?

Comments

[lifeonwry.livejournal.com]

Yeah, wrong text with that picture. This is a wild-ass guess, but the knobs on the woman's back may be small glasses (of the drinking variety). Something I learned from an acupuncturist: you set a cotton ball on fire and toss it into a shot glass, then put the mouth of the shotglass against the skin on the back. The removal of oxygen causes the flame to go out, and creates a vacuum that pulls the skin into the glass. Allegedly this draws toxins from the skin (or even, I have heard claimed, the lung themselves.) I dunno if it works, but it'll give you an impressive and interesting hickey.

Anyhow, if this is a bathhouse thingie, maybe it did double duty (like a barber-surgeon) as a spa - we're talking DEEP pore-cleansing.

[msmcknittington.livejournal.com]

I thought of that, and they did do that as part of Western medicine at a later date, though I'm not sure on the 16th century. I believe it had something to do with either circulation or balance of humors. The balance of humors thing held out for centuries in Europe, though, so basing the use of a treatment on a theory that may have been implemented at a later date is tetchy.

The fact that she's washing a child makes medical treatment unlikely in my mind, though. It really looks like she has scrub brushes on her shoulders -- like Scrubbing Bubbles dudes.