2,000-year-old vial suggests Romans prescribed human poop for common illnesses

A small glass vial buried nearly two millennia ago is forcing archaeologists to confront an uncomfortable truth about ancient medicine: the Romans may have deliberately used human feces as a treatment for illness.

The discovery comes from a tomb in Pergamon, an ancient city in present-day Turkey that was redeveloped under the Roman emperor Trajan in the early second century. Inside the vial, researchers found brown flakes that, after chemical analysis, revealed traces of human feces mixed with thyme, strong evidence that bodily waste was once considered part of the Roman medical toolkit.

According to researchers, the substance was likely used to treat infections and inflammation. While ancient medical texts have long suggested that feces played a role in healing practices across several early civilizations, this is the first time physical archaeological evidence has confirmed that such remedies were actually prepared and stored.

“Faecal-based pharmacological treatments are widely attested in Greco-Roman medical texts,” said lead author Dr Cenker Atila of Turkey’s Sivas Cumhuriyet University.

“The use of faeces as a form of treatment was known in the ancient Egyptian, Chinese, Greek, and Roman worlds, based on written sources.

“However, until now, there had been no archaeological evidence of this practice. The vessel's contents revealed a distinctive blend of human faecal biomarkers.

“And aromatic compounds such as carvacrol, a major constituent of thyme oil. These results align with classical prescriptions that combined dung with odour-masking agents to enhance patient compliance.”

The presence of thyme appears to have served a practical purpose. Researchers believe the herb was added to mask the smell, making the medicine more tolerable for patients, a detail that closely matches descriptions found in ancient medical writings.

The study, reported by the Daily Star, adds weight to long-standing historical claims that bodily substances were routinely incorporated into early medical treatments, not just in Rome but across multiple ancient cultures. Until now, those claims rested almost entirely on texts rather than tangible proof.

The research team is now examining additional glass vials and ceramic containers held in museums across Turkey to determine whether other ancient pharmaceutical samples have survived. If more are found, scholars say it could prompt a broader reassessment of Roman medical practice, and how experimental, and sometimes extreme, it truly was.

While the idea of dung-based medicine may provoke modern revulsion, the researchers note that the underlying concept has not entirely disappeared. Contemporary faecal microbiota transplants, administered in clinical settings to treat severe gut infections, are a reminder that substances derived from the digestive system can, under controlled conditions, have therapeutic value.

The Romans, it seems, were willing to test that idea centuries earlier, albeit in a far cruder and considerably less appealing form.