10 Bizarre Methods Of Treatment
Published on September 29, 2009 | 23 commentsThe medical field is always looking for ways to cure diseases. Even in the Medieval or ancient times, they would come up with plausible solutions for what was ailing the patient. Things in today’s society are a little more sophisticated than back then, but there are still some bizarre treatments for sicknesses and diseases.
Clysters
This procedure consists of introducing liquids into the rectum or colon. This procedure would cause the intestines to inflate causing all the backed up toxins to evacuate the body. This was seen as a way of administering drugs into the system for faster relief of upset stomachs.
Bloodletting
It was believed that removing a substantial amount of blood would prevent or cure diseases. When a person was thought to have high blood pressure, they would use this method to reduce it. They believed that purging the blood would cure diseases and it would help the blood to circulate better. If you have a fever, headache, or apoplexy, which was stroke like or seizure symptoms, they would perform this procedure near the area that was affected. The thought was that if it was performed there then the ailment would be healed.
Spells
It was believed that a person of the pagan faith could heal a person. Of the person that was sick was visited by a pagan and they looked under a rock to see something living, then they would survive the ailment. These people were then asked to repent for their sins. They were told that this would help in the curing process.
Dwale
This was the term for potions used during surgeries. The patients needed to sleep during the procedures, but the use of just the hemlock plant was potentially lethal. A mixture of lettuce juice, gall from a castrated boar, briony, opium, henbane, hemlock juice and vinegar mixed with wine would put the patient to sleep. The dwale had the potential of being to strong and killing the patient during the procedure.
Potato Peels
These are used to treat burns. It has been found out that if you use a potato peel on a fresh burn it will heel faster than the traditional bandage. The advantages of this are it is cheap, non-sticky, heals fast, patients won’t cry out when it is removed, and it will keep the skin moist. A burn victim loses moisture through the evaporation occurring from the wound, but the potato can help prevent that from happening. Aside from moisture qualities of a potato peel, they also have anti-bacterial properties.
Vinegar
According to various studies, pouring vinegar on a jellyfish sting can stop the venom that is released by the sting. If you remove all the tentacles and then pouring vinegar on the wound would alleviate the pain and stop the release of more venom into your system.
Hydrotherapy
This procedure involved just taking a bath in order to soothe pain and get rid of diseases. It used to be believed that taking a bath with oils and flowers or bathing in spring water would cure what was ailing you. Some doctors took this idea to the extreme though and would take up the practice of wrapping their patients in ice cold towels, spraying them down with high pressured water hoses, or submerging them in baths for hours or days, only letting them out to use the bathroom. Hydrotherapy can still be found today for treatments of arthritis, ankylosing, spondylitis, spinal cord injuries, burns, spasticity, stroke, or paralysis.
Chemically Induced Seizures
This practiced was used by a Hungarian pathologist. He claimed that seizure patients did not exhibit signs of schizophrenia and they were happy after a seizure occurred, so inducing one in a schizophrenic patient would in turn make them happy and cure them. He tested a few drugs to make the seizures occur, but settled on one called metrazol. He had some success with this procedure, because of the chemical in the brain releases after a seizure calmed the patients, but it was frowned upon due to the side effects, which included possible injuries and a continued pattern of seizures.
Lobotomy
This is a surgical procedure that involves removing the front portion of someone’s brain. For 20yrs this treatment was used to treat schizophrenia, clinical depression, other anxiety disorders, moodiness, or a defiant youth. After antipsychotic drugs were discovered, this procedure was no longer used and it was considered one of the biggest medical mistakes to take place. Read about Lobotomy Victims and Their Life Afterwards.
Trepanation
This procedure consists of drilling a hole in the brain in order to relieve a disease that may be occurring in the brain. It was believed that the practice would cure epileptic seizures, migraines, and mental disorders. This practice is still used today when swelling of the brain occurs due to a head injury, or when blood appears under the finger nail, they will drill a hole and it is often referred to by the same name. People that lay on a bed of nails are thought to be performing a version of this procedure, because it is releasing pressure from blood vessels under the skin.
Written by Harmony Stalter – Copyrighted © www.weirdworm.com
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23 Comments
Interesting, but why don’t you cover some of the crackpot methods still being practiced today, such as homeopathy, ear candling, reflexology, chiropractic subluxation, reiki and therapeutic touch. Many of these are just as nutty and have even less medical basis than what you have listed here.
Your thoughts are interesting to say the least.
All of the things you have mentioned (homeopathy, ear candling, reflexology, chiropractic, reiki and therapeutic touch) actually do work.
No. They don’t. In actual clinical trials, they all fail time and time and time again. In reality they are no more effective than placebos. The only “evidence” that they work is anecdotal, which in medical terms, is not evidence at all.
The only one which has any merit is Chiropractic, which is only useful for genuine spine and joint problems. The idea that manipulating the spine can cure eczema or allergies is absolute nonsense.
As any good scientist will tell you, you can find studies to support anything. What matters is what works, and you really only know this from experience.
Scientific fact, is constantly changing and is really the opinion of whoever is speaking. No matter how credible or objective they or their data may appear.
After years of derision, about a decade ago, acupuncture was declared a cure by the AMA for high blood pressure, and as an effective treatment for a number of different conditions.
Acupressure is now being taught to U.S. military doctors for battlefield and therapeutic use. Yet, you can still find articles that claim there is “no evidence” that it does anything.
Reiki, Therapeutic Touch and similar (and more effective) methods have been proven effective in studies in Europe and Asia, but you rarely see those results published in the U.S.
There are false claims made about every modality, traditional or not, and every field has people that could use more training. But it doesn’t mean that method is not effective.
I’m not criticizing you at all with this, so I mean no disrespect. Years ago, I too had a kind of righteous scientific arrogance against non-western or non-traditional things, that I got from reading certain studies and the work of ‘professional debunkers’. I had a kind of negative “fun” criticizing things.
Until I actually had experiences with those things, that changed my entire perspective. As a person of science, I learned that what is called science, is not as reliable as I had thought.
Now, I only express something with certainty if I have adequate first hand experience with it, and state if my opinion comes from an honest objective experience or only something I read.
About half of what you are told or read eventually turns out not to be true.
Get a session with different modalities, have no bias either way, and see how it feels.
Reiki and TT are about as effective as any placebo procedure. Both practices which allegedly manipulate a life force which cannot be measured or observed. In the eyes of science, qi does not exist, therefore any practice claiming to “unblock” or “channel” qi for the purposes of healing is complete bunk. The so called success of these procedures are simply a testament to the power of suggestion and behavioral conditioning, and are reliant on the ability of the practitioner to “sell” the procedure, and the patient’s willingness to believe it will work.
Human experience is entirely subjective. I takes more than someone telling me they tried it and it worked, for me to believe its validity. Its not good enough for you to say “studies in Europe have shown” unless you can produce said studies. This is not self-righteous arrogance, its healthy skepticism.
When a Reiki practitioner cures something more substantial than a vague sense of unease or a minor niggle that would have gone away by itself in 24 hours, then I’ll sit up and pay attention. Until such time, I’ll continue to call these as I see them; unfounded, untested, unscientific woo-woo designed the line the pockets of practitioners with the potential of distracting patients from getting real treatments that could actually help them.
I read the OP with great interest and Tim’s post with even greater interest. I happen to be one of those “unscientific woo-woo” people. And I thought I’d clear up a few things for him.
Firstly, I work with healing energy. I don’t claim to cure cancer or raise the dead, but I can – and do – help with pain, both short term, and long term (as in old injuries and inflammations). Often, I am NOT told what or where the injury is, and often work remotely, without being able to see the patient. Yet, I still have successfully treated a variety of injuries and painful body traumas, by working directly on the affected part, and telling the patient what is is that is bothering them, which they then confirm is the case. Coincidence? Hardly. I can “see” the affected area very easily, and immediately work on it. The principle works the same way X rays do. Which, if you’ll think about it for a moment, is a form of energy. That stuff you um… don’t believe in, right?
I’ve manipulated bones and muscles from thousands of miles away, can easily affect peoples energy levels – upward OR downward – and general moods, and can give short or long term pain relief, as well as relieving symptoms of all kinds. I have first hand experience at helping people who actually didn’t believe I could help them. Total skeptics. Works for them, the same way it works for believers. *grins*
As for scientific evidence and links to back it up, no problem;
http://www.reiki.org/Download/OschmanReprint2.pdf
I’m not a miracle worker, and I happily admit that. But I do make a positive difference to those I am allowed to help. And for the record, I’m equally at home with science as I am with the “woo woos”.
One last thought – as for making a killing from my treatments, as a matter of fact, I don’t change for what I do. No gifts, no donations, nothing. I do, because I can – not because I’m interesting in material gain.
Now, do I expect you to suddenly open your mind and take anything I’ve said on board? Of course not. Your mind is a rusted steel trap, closed to anything “different”. No amount of evidence to the contrary will shift your position.
And there, you and scientific methodology part company. It has no bias, it merely seeks to learn what is the fundamental truth of things.
I can relate to that.
Can you?
Best wishes – Tiger
It is very interesting facts that most of these “medical” methods are used even today.
weird and great post. i think this was the time when medicines and practices were still in the process of exploration. but i think some of them worked in real life, or perhaps became the origin of some great medical practice nowadays.
Some of this “methods” are perfectly acceptable and have scientific backup.
Specifically, the potato and the vinegar one.
They’re perfectly acceptable, in contrast with the other 8 listed here.
Hydrotherapy can still be found today for treatments of arthritis, ankylosing, spondylitis, spinal cord injuries, burns, spasticity, stroke, or paralysis.
Ankylosing spondylitis is a disorder, not to seperate ones. Also known as spondylitis ankylopoëtica and, more common, Bechterew
In reference to Tim above. One modality that is used in the East with regards to Qi is acupuncture. (Acupressure runs off of the same principle). The flow of Qi when blocked is said to cause ailments. Channels of Qi have been mapped out and are used just the same as nerve paths, although the two are not based on one another.
I wish I could find the reference but there was an individual that went to China to observe this so called “Qi”. What he observed shocked him and the Western world. He observed patients being cured as much as Western medicine could provide similar ailments. He even observed a patient under acupuncture anesthesia. The acupuncturist blocked the patients pain by using pins to block the flow of Qi and the patient underwent brain surgery! True the brain has no pain receptors to register pain but the process to access the brain is quiet painful! The patient also had a quicker recovery time, whether this is due to placebo or not is left to the unkown. What we are finding is that alone Western medicine and Eastern medicine do not cure all or cure completely many ailments. We are finding that a combo of the two provides much better results. One notable difference between the two forms of medicine is that Eastern tends to have more of a focus on preventative where Western is a reactive. We are only recently seen more trends toward the former.
Here is reference to an article printed in the UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4493011.stm
Chiropractic like you mentioned is only good for skeletal manipulation. Many times though ailments are caused by an inpingement by the skeletal system. So by fixing the misalignment you will fix or ‘cure’ the problem. You need multiple visits due to the fact that your muscles will try and move the bones back to the state that they were in prior to treatment. The problem comes in finding a chiropractic that is truly good at what they do, as many of them are quacks. I believe that they alone have done more damage to their profession then any other skeptic.
There has been much research in the healing properties of human touch. This article focuses on massage… http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-09-28-touch-healing_N.htm
If we were to base all healing on whether or not it worked for everybody or a majority, then no form of healing really works and will only carry some merit. For me personnally, I have a high tolerance to pain and thus most OTC medications will not work and even some prescribed goodies (i.e. percocet) do not work for me either. When I go to the dentist I either deal with the pain or get put under completely for procedures.
Healing is subjective as well. Although the procedures and protocols for the process are set and a doctor may declare a patient cured, they may not be healed. A person who may be rid or cured of cancer may not be healed. I have had shingles. Though the actual episode is gone I still have residual pain and scars. Am I healed? I know this all plays into semantics, but it shows that healing is subjective.
So what does work for one person out of the world does not discredit that healing modality. I think that your “healthy skepticism” only blocks the possibility of you being healed but a different modality. To each their own.
Great blog!!! Very informative and inciteful. Excellent!!!
Tim seems to think that if he can’t do it, or can’t quantify it himself, it doesn’t exist. Good on you Tim, that God the rest of humanity isn’t as ignorant and closed minded as you.
On the contrary. I’m open-minded to ideas which have evidence to support them. So far I’ve seen no evidence, just psuedoscientific nonsense which has been debunked over and over again by real scientists.
Find me some real evidence that is supported by the scientific community (not the homeopathy/alt-med-fad-du-jour community) and you’ll make a believer out of me.
It was a really nice theme! Just wanna say thank you for the data you have fanned. Just continue penning this kind of post. I will be your patriotic reader. Gives Thanks once more.
Actually trepanation is drilling a hole in the skull, usually to relieve the pressure of excess fluids in the brain cavity. And there’s evidence that trepanation was both performed and survived more than three thousand years ago. (when bones heal they develope a shiny sort of look; when thousands of years old skulls with signs of healed trepanation were first found it was thought that the holes had been drilled after death and polished as a sort of gruesome goblet, but what had been taken for polishing was later shown to be signs of healing)
Although there is a procedure in which the two halves of the brain are cut off from communicating with each other by severing the partition of brain-tissue that connects them. I don’t know if it’s still a practiced procedure, and it was never common, but it did (or does?) exist. It was (is?) performed to correct issues with the right and left halves of the brain constantly bickering, which can apparently lead to some pretty nasty symptoms. I imagine indecisiveness would be one such symptom lol.
I’m a open-minded person with a healthy skepticism like Tim. One day, my mom asked me to accompany her to a reflexologist. Once there, she asked me to give it a shot. Being skeptic, i decided to see what’s the fuss all about.
When the reflexologist pressing on some points and gauging my reaction, he deduced that i was a smoker with a history of low blood pressure (ever since i was little, when i tried standing up too fast, i get this “semi-blackout”), and i was constipated at the time. I thought to myself, “holy crap, he’s right”, and that changed my attitude toward reflexology. Bear in mind i haven’t smoked all day (for respect to my mom) and i didn’t tell him anything prior to the meeting.
Afterward, my digestion system is back on track. Then i used the knowledge he taught me (“just press this and this point” that’s what he said) with apparent effect (No more semi-blackout now). and all that cost me the equivalent of $1,5 (obviously it’s not in U.S).
I’ve always treat everything i read & watch, scientific or testimonial alike, with a grain of salt. However i can not deny anything that i experienced first-hand. just my two cents.
Quality read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a small research on that. And he really bought me lunch cause I got it for him.