Donkey milk
[2] Hippocrates (460–370 BC) was the first to write of the medicinal use of donkey milk and prescribed it for numerous conditions, including poisoning, fevers, infectious diseases, edema, wounds, nose bleeds, and liver trouble.
[3][4] In the Roman era, donkey milk was a recognized remedy; Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) in his encyclopedic work, Naturalis Historia, wrote extensively about its health benefits, i.e. to fight fever, fatigue, eye strain, weakened teeth, face wrinkles, poisonings, ulcerations, asthma, and certain gynecological troubles.
Donkey's milk was sold until the twentieth century to feed orphaned infants and to cure delicate children, the sick, and the elderly.
[15] Lysozyme in donkey milk is highly thermo-stable and is very resistant to acid and protease and may play a significant role in the intestinal immune response.
[11] The bioactive peptides insulin-like growth factor 1, ghrelin, and triiodothyronine were also found in frozen donkey milk.
These molecules and many others present in human milk, are increasingly receiving attention from a nutraceutical point of view because of their potential direct role in regulating food intake, metabolism, and infant body condition.
To use it in infant nutrition before weaning, donkey milk should be integrated with a source of fat;[13] particular attention must also be given to essential fatty acids.
[18] The integration of these substances can take place with supplements of essential fatty acids (omega-3; omega-6) and vegetable oil certified for babies.
[11] Donkey's milk is recommended for countering stomach acid, promoting the growth of intestinal flora, calming coughs and pertussis (a.k.a.
The result is approximately ten percent of dry matter that is called lyophilized (or freeze-dried) donkey milk.
[citation needed] In recent years, the cosmetic industry has focused on products made with natural ingredients, and is oriented towards sustainable consumption.
[21] A recent scientific study on a cream containing lyophilized donkey milk showed different benefits for the skin.
These results are related to the effectiveness of donkey milk components like proteins, minerals, vitamins, essential fatty acids, bioactive enzymes, and coenzymes which provide balanced nourishment and proper hydration for the skin.
Some authors have preliminarily evaluated whether the use of a face cream made from donkey milk affected the perception of some sensory aspects.
[23] It is said that Cleopatra, Queen of Ancient Egypt, took baths in donkey milk to preserve the beauty and youth of her skin.
[3][4][24][25] This was also the case for Poppaea Sabina (30–65), second wife of Roman Emperor Nero, who is referred to in Pliny's description of the virtues of ass milk for the skin: "It is generally believed that ass milk effaces wrinkles in the face, renders the skin more delicate, and preserves its whiteness: and it is a well-known fact, that some women are in the habit of washing their face with it seven times daily, strictly observing that number.
Poppaea, the wife of Emperor Nero, was the first to practice this; indeed, she had sitting baths, prepared solely with ass milk, for which purpose whole troops of she-asses used to attend her on her journeys.
"[5][26] In his poem Medicamina Faciei Femineae, Roman poet Ovid (43 BC–18 AD) suggests beauty masks made with donkey milk.
The first written documents reporting the nutritional and "curative" effects of equine milk date back to around 2000 years ago.
He prescribed donkey milk for numerous ailments, such as liver problems, edemas, nosebleeds, poisonings, infectious diseases, the healing of sores, and fevers.
Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD), in his encyclopedic work Naturalis Historia, described its many health benefits, ranging from its use as an anti-venom or as a relief for external irritations (itching) to the use of it in a pomade (ointment) for the eyes.
The beneficial effects of equid milk, from the first historical sources to the present day, are aimed at: It was generally described as a food capable of regenerating a weakened, emaciated, impoverished organism in an unusually short time, allowing the body to achieve better resistance.
It was used by the Asian (Mongolian) equestrian peoples often as the only source of food for long periods and during high physical exertion, without the body developing symptoms of deficiency.
They moved on their horses across the steppes, deserts, and mountains and covered large distances, and for long periods they lived mainly on the milk of their mares, both fresh and fermented (kumyss).
Postnikov, a Russian doctor who dedicated his career to the research and use of horse milk in the mid-19th century, summed up its effects in three words:
