Jaundiced is the way you look when you have something wrong with you liver and from the layman’s point of view that is the simplest way to explain it. The cause must be investigated by a professional for it may be a symptom of hepatitis or a problem associated with the gall bladder, or it may be the use of certain drugs which has given the yellow hue to the skin and a dingy tinge to the eyes.

Yellow jaundice is not an illness in itself but judging by the remedies suggested for treating it the ancient medics obviously felt that sympathetic medicine in the form of anything golden yellow could be used. These ranged from copious quantities of carrot juice to wormwood, horehound, sheep’s dung, ale and rum all stewed up in water and also included all the yellow plants amber, gold cloth, walnuts, wormseed and brimstone – after surviving which  you could survive anything!

One of the medicines prescribed to cure jaundice was a purgative made of chamomile, senna, ginger and jalap (from the ipomoea plant) and jalap (from the ipomoea plant) and it is presumably from this source that the slang word for medicine – jollop – arose. You can make yourself feel more comfortable by eating asparagus, globe artichokes and kelp and by drinking a great deal of barley water. You may also add Epsom salts to your bath water to relieve the aches and pains but I do not think that the very ancient remedy of dropping an uncorked bottle of your urine into a stream and waiting hopefully for your yellow appearance to die away as do the waters in the stream will bring much comfort. If you had hepatitis this could be positively antisocial.

One old country remedy involved taking the first milk from the cow after calving and giving it to the patient. Such milk is full of good things not to be found in any other milking so this remedy is not as improbable as it sounds.