# Honey

**Mel**

**Known today as.** Honey of bees.

Kind: Food & Drink  
Qualities: Heating: Lémery kept it from those of “a hot and bilious Constitution,” in whom it “readily turns into Choler,” and gave it to the cold and phlegmatic.

## What was it used for?

The vehicle of medicines, in oxymel, hydromel and *mulsa*, and a dressing for ulcers and wounds.

## What does modern science say?

It is antibacterial; medical-grade honey is used on wounds and burns today.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **glucose**: 
- **fructose**: 
- **hydrogen peroxide**: made by the bee’s glucose oxidase
- **methylglyoxal**: in manuka honey

**Mechanism.** The strong sugar is hostile to bacteria by osmosis; hydrogen peroxide adds to it, and manuka honey has a further, non-peroxide activity. Methylglyoxal is among the components under study.

**Dose.** Infant botulism from spores; grayanotoxin in the “mad honey” of the Black Sea.

**Standing.** Several medical-grade honey dressings are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for minor wounds and burns; by the reference article’s account the World Health Organization recommends honey for coughs and sore throats, children included.

## What lore surrounds it?

Norse myth, as Snorri Sturluson tells it, makes honey the medium of poetic inspiration: the dwarfs Fjalar and Galar killed the wise Kvasir and mixed his blood with honey to brew the Mead of Poetry, which makes whoever drinks it a poet or scholar; Odin later stole it and gave it to the gods and to those truly gifted in poetry.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Egypt.** The Edwin Smith Papyrus treats wounds with grease, honey, and lint, bound on “every day until he recovers.”

**Hippocrates.** Praised oxymel and hydromel in acute diseases; see [Oxymel](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/oxymel-and-oxymel-of-squill).

## Sources

- Hippocrates, *Regimen in Acute Diseases*.
- The Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BC).
- Wikipedia, “Mead of poetry.”
- “Honey.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “M nuka honey.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Grayanotoxin.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- Lémery, L. (1745). *A Treatise of All Sorts of Foods, both Animal and Vegetable; also of Drinkables*, trans. D. Hay. London: T. Osborne.
- Dioscorides. *De Materia Medica*, trans. T. A. Osbaldeston (2000). Johannesburg: Ibidis.
- Canale, F. (1622). *Del modo di conoscer et sanare i maleficiati*. Brescia.
- Jull, A. B., et al. (2015). “Honey as a topical treatment for wounds.” *Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews*.

---

*Honey.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/honey

Historical description, not medical advice.