Podcast summary
EXHUMED Chapter 7: Leftovers — Unearthed Histories
Corpse medicine treated bodies as medicine inventories
Corpse medicine’s unifying logic combined sympathetic magic, alchemy, and “leftover” vital spirits: violent, premature deaths supposedly left usable power, so human remains became healing tools.
Efficacy claims relied on timing and vitality theory
Practitioners didn’t just believe “the dead heal”; they argued whether warmth, contagion, or soul-transfer mattered, making execution timing and death conditions central to perceived outcomes.
Medical recipes embedded colonial violence and supply chains
Demand for ingredients (skulls, fat, hands) drove sourcing from executions and battlefields, and the transcript links this to racialized justifications for conquest—especially in Ireland.
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