The land helix, or snail, has been used in medicine since antiquity and prepared according to several formulations. The therapeutic properties of snails were thought to come from their holy strength. ‘Associated with femininity and fertility, curative properties are given to snails to treat associated diseases’ (1). Hippocrates proposed snail mucus against protocoele. Celse considered crude snail, i.e. snail crushed with its shell, as a healing substance. Boiled, it is supposed to have emollient properties. Pliny thought that snail increased the speed of delivery. Reduced to a pulp, ‘it is a sovereign remedy to treat pain related to burns, abscesses and other wounds’. Pliny also recommended snails for nosebleed and stomach pain, and many other pathological conditions: ‘female scrofula can be cured with very dry and peeled old snails. To patients with stomach pains, one must prescribe snails that were boiled and grilled over a coal fire, and should be eaten with wine. Snails from Africa are the best, but they must be prepared in an uneven number. Those who spit up blood feel much better if they drink snails. Eating snails was prescribed for individuals suffering from vertigo, fainting fits, and fits of madness. The snails should be crushed in the shell and heated with wine’ (2). Pliny finally directed: ‘arrows, darts that have to be extracted from the body are attracted outside by applying a rat or a lizard that is cut down the middle. Snails which are attached in groups on the leaves of trees are crushed, as well as snails in their shells, and applied for the same reason to the wound’ (3). Galien recommended snails against hydrops fetalis. Antiquity expanded the idea that the snail has an instinctive knowledge of some remedies: ‘A snail’, said Ambrose, ‘when eating snake intestines and feels the penetration of poison, cures itself with oregano and when a snail is in a swamp, it is able to find the appropriate antidote and knows the power of saving herbs’ (4).
Closer to us, Ambroise Paré recommended snails against anthrax (5). Snail water is also present in the Universal Pharmacopoeia, written by Lemery in 1738, in France: ‘One leaves snails in their shells, washes them, and then crushes them in a marble mortar. They are placed in a large glass jar, positioned on a bain-marie, into which the fresh milk of a female donkey is poured. The whole is mixed well with a wooden spatula, and then left for digestion for 12 h before it is distilled. The resulting distilled water is exposed to the sun for several days in a glass bottle, and then kept in the bottle. This is a hydrator, and is refreshing, useful for skin redness, and can be used to clean up one's face… It can also be used internally for the spasms of spitting blood accompanying tuberculosis, and for the urine ardour of nephritis. The dosage is between one and six ounces’ (6).