One fairly common ingredient in home remedies of the 17th century was snails. There were plenty of recipes for snail medicine, like this one for snail water to treat "green wounds, fits and convulsions."
Take shell snailes, take them out of their shells and wash them in white wine & take out [the] green stuff [that] is within them, take a quart of snails so prepared, & as much green angelico stalks sliced thin, 2 handfuls of Jerusalem cowslips, & 2 handfulls of coltsfoot, &a good capon all the flesh must be cut from the bones & cut into bits, but no fat, put all these into new milk, let the milk cover these things about two inches, let them steep twelve hours & still them in a cold still with a gentle fire, put up your still close, drink this with white sugarcandy and rose water. lay hartstoung in [the] bottom of your still. 1
The snails in this recipe aren't as gross as the raw chicken and milk steeping for 12 hours. It's no wonder one had to take it with candy and rose water. As to its efficacy, well, in the 1600s people just tried anything they could find. Read about other medicinal concoctions made from snails at Early Modern Medicine. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Neelix)
But the best is still to use the snails with butter, parsley and garlic, yum ;)