Drinking wine from toxic cups was the 17th century’s own dubious ‘detox’ treatment

In this video, Angus Patterson, the senior curator of metalwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, explores a somewhat innocuous-looking object in the museum’s collection with a fascinating history. Carefully removing the rare, delicate item from its original container, Patterson reveals it to be an ‘antimonial cup’ with origins in the late 17th century. This and similar vessels made from the toxic metalloid antimony were meant to be drunk from by those suffering from any number of ailments, with the user’s resulting purge of bodily fluids thought to rebalance the humours – although, as Patterson points out, not without a good degree of skepticism from the contemporary medical establishment. Drawing out a fascinating slice of medical history before the rise of germ theory, the short is a reminder of just how long humanity misunderstood the root causes of disease, echoed by the scientifically dubious ‘cleanses’ that remain quite popular today.