Chocolate Worm Cake – not a cake and no chocolate worms!

It’s World Chocolate Day! Few people would let the day pass without enjoying this historic and popular confectionary!

However, in among the Horsham Museum & Art Gallery archives is this packet of Chocolate Worm Cake!

Even the most fanatic chocoholic would baulk at trying this, though.

There were no chocolate worms and it wasn’t a cake!

Instead, the packet contained tablets aimed at attacking intestinal worm infestations, especially in children during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

The ‘cakes’ were sold through chemist shops.

In those days there were three types of worm infestations that could cause major problems for humans, especially children – threadworm, roundworm and the long tapeworm.

People could be infected by eating food that contained the worms’ eggs. The resulting symptoms could be painful and very damaging to that person’s health, especially if they were young. A tape worm could ‘steal’ up to ten per cent of a child’s nutritional intake.

In a period when few people could consult a doctor and relied on the chemist for help, the Chocolate Worm Cakes were a tempting cure.

The name was specifically chosen to make them sound more palatable.

Sometimes they did contain cocoa and cinnamon was added so they tasted better. However, they also contained compounds of mercury! These would kill the worms but had obvious risks for the patient.