Unusual treatment. The strangest and most unusual methods of treatment. Getting rid of diseases with the help of fish and insects

You can treat doctors differently, you can criticize their lack of professionalism or admire their golden hands. But in any case, a miracle is expected from them, which can both save from death and change life radically. So doctors are trying, coming up with the most incredible ways to treat their patients.

Plastic surgery can solve the problem in a short period of time - the operation to restore the dimples on the cheeks will take up to 10 minutes, for a facelift - from 2 to 5. And there are those that last the whole day. A team of surgeons can spend 24 hours to achieve the perfect shape of a brand new face. Such an operation was performed on a patient from Cleveland at the Vall d "Hebron Hospital in Barcelona. This was the first full-scale operation using several implants. To perform such a high-quality operation, a radical change of face, you will need a donor, his jaw, and other necessary parts.

Bloodletting is the extraction of some blood. This procedure was widespread during the Middle Ages, as a panacea for the treatment of any kind of disease - from plague to acne. It was carried out by specially trained hairdressers-surgeons, and the red ribbon attached to the barber's dwelling testified to his professionalism in this matter. In the Middle Ages, during bloodletting, they could either place cups or cut an artery. By the 19th century, a special tool appeared, the scarifier. Today, a similar procedure is performed to treat hemochromatosis, when a person has too much iron in the body.

Another popular method of treatment in the Middle Ages is leeches. The effect of exposure is similar to the bloodletting procedure, since leeches sticking to the skin begin to suck up blood, as many believe, it is “bad blood”, which, according to medieval healers, was the cause of all diseases. In modern medicine, leeches are used in plastic surgery to ensure the normalization of blood circulation in a certain area of ​​the body, for example, if a finger is sewn on.

Women wear heels to appear taller or carry a chihuahua for contrast. Dr. Elizarov's apparatus, which he created in 1955, will help not only build up a bone fragment for cosmetic purposes, but also help to heal bones in very serious fractures. This is a metal frame that holds the damaged bone and allows the body itself to build up the missing fragments. The device can be reinstalled if necessary, until the bone of the required length grows. It is also used to correct congenital defects of the skeleton.

Fly larvae are placed in a surgically treated open wound, where they eat necrotic tissue, in place of which a healthy one appears. The larvae also disinfect the wound by killing pathogenic bacteria. This method was widely used in the 30-40s of the 20th century, when penicillin had not yet been obtained.

In 2009, an article appeared about how a father who drank his daughter's breast milk thus fought cancer. Scientists from the University of Lund and the University of Gothenberg (Sweden) have confirmed that it is capable of killing cancer cells, thanks to the substance alpha-lactalbumin found in it.

Patients in underwear are placed in a special chamber with liquid nitrogen, where the temperature is -1500C for 2-4 minutes. The body, having received a shock in this unusual way, begins to secrete endorphins, a hormone that relieves pain. This procedure helps patients with fibromyalgia, as well as injured athletes.

While astronauts in orbit drink urine converted into fresh water, some on Earth drink it for the purpose of treatment, claiming that it contains antibodies that help our bodies heal from cancer and AIDS. But serious research institutes and societies do not confirm this fact.

tiger penis soup

Some people in Asia believe that we are what we eat. For thousands of years, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners have been treating everything from snakes soaked in rice vodka to bear paws. One of the most exotic ingredients of Chinese medicine is the tiger's penis, which is used to make soup for potency. Since 1987, the legal trade in them has been banned, as the tiger population has catastrophically decreased to 3,200 individuals in the world.

pearl powder

Some are accustomed to wearing a pearl necklace as a piece of jewelry, and Chinese healers grind pearls and use the powder to treat skin conditions such as acne. Also, this powder produces a rejuvenating effect. However, there are pearls. More recently, doctors prescribed quite legally as effective drugs.

“Studying the phenomenon of disease without books is the same as
that swim in the unexplored sea,
and studying from books without patients is the same,
not to go out to sea at all.”

Sir William Osler (Physician and Professor of Medicine)

Historical documents show that our ancestors had a fairly good knowledge of various ailments and diseases. However, some of the therapeutic methods they used were, to put it mildly, not inspiring confidence. Since the people of the past were the first to study various methods of treating various ailments, experimentation reigned in medicine. In the absence of any primary sources, the healers used, unsuccessfully trying to help the sick, everything they could, and often the treatment did more harm than good. There was no guarantee of recovery, but there was a high probability that the drugs would contain some extremely disgusting ingredients.

bloodletting

Physicians of the past believed that the body is made up of four basic substances - yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood - and maintaining a balance between them is the key to health. People suffering from various kinds of ailments often "found" too much blood. To eliminate the existing problem, doctors simply cut the veins and released some of it into the cup. Although bloodletting could easily lead to death with the slightest carelessness, it continued to be resorted to until the 19th century, when even barbers offered it among their services, along with shaving and cutting hair. This method of treatment was discontinued when it was finally proven to do more harm than good. However, in rare cases, controlled bloodletting is still practiced today in the form of leech therapy.

skull treatment

Among the ancient Sumerians/Babylonians, the role of doctors was often performed by priests or exorcists, and the methods of treatment they recommended were based on magic. It was believed that diseases often appear due to the possession of spirits. To fight the spirits and get rid of them, doctors instructed patients to sleep with a human skull for a week. As an additional precaution against spirit possession, it was also recommended to lick and kiss the skull seven times a night.

Treatment methods for hemorrhoids

Until the 12th century, people believed that hemorrhoids appear due to the fact that a person is not pious. Therefore, if someone had the misfortune to encounter this ailment, he was sent to the monastery, where the monks treated the unfortunate person by pushing a hot iron rod into his anus. Eventually, in the 12th century, a Jewish doctor studied the nature of hemorrhoids and questioned the effectiveness of such treatment. He suggested a simpler alternative: taking warm baths to relieve pain. This method is still widely used today.

Mercury

Today, most of us know that mercury is toxic to the human body. However, earlier this substance was considered one of the most effective medicines, which helped to get rid of a wide range of health problems. The ancient Persians and Greeks made patients drink mercury or apply it to the body as an ointment. The Chinese used mercury-containing compounds, believing that they increased vitality and ensured long life. Until the late 19th century, this liquid metal was used to treat sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. Not surprisingly, many patients died from mercury poisoning-induced damage to the kidneys and liver.

Cannibalistic drugs

In ancient times, it was believed that eating the remains of a deceased person increased the level of vital energy. Potions containing human blood, bones, or flesh were often recommended for people suffering from headaches, boils, seizures, and so on. The ancient Romans crushed the mummies they captured as trophies in Egypt and added the resulting powder to various medicines. This shocking practice continued into the 17th century: British King Charles II was rumored to have drunk a drink made from alcohol and powdered human skulls.

Ointments from faeces

The ancient Egyptians were known for their well thought out medical system. However, the drugs they prescribed were highly questionable. For example, topical ointments were often made from the blood of lizards and dead mice, while women were given horse saliva to boost their libido. The worst practice was probably the inclusion of animal and human feces in various healing compositions. Deer, dog and donkey droppings were considered especially effective in protecting a person from evil spirits. Victorian medicine describes a concoction of cross, juveniles, goose and chicken droppings, and wild pig lard that was used to treat burns.

Treatment with bee venom

Bee venom therapy, a practice still in use today, has been used to treat ailments such as herpes, arthritis, and rheumatism for hundreds of years. Doctors deliberately made bees sting patients in the nose and mouth area to heal them from a variety of diseases. There is no scientific evidence of the effectiveness of this treatment method yet.

Maggot therapy

Usually indispensable in the presence of non-healing surgical wounds, maggot therapy has been used for almost the entire history of mankind. This method of treatment involved placing larvae in open wounds, which ate away dead tissue, facilitating the healing process. Surprisingly, maggot therapy is beginning to regain popularity among modern physicians.

Lobotomy

As one of the most controversial medical practices in human history, lobotomy even earned its inventor a Nobel Prize. Used in the fight against diseases such as schizophrenia and even anxiety and depression, it was very popular until the 1930s. This method of treatment involved the introduction of a needle or loop through the eye sockets into a certain part of the brain, which sometimes entailed unwanted damage to it. By the 1950s, when the use of lobotomy was discontinued, more than 70,000 people were treated through this procedure. Today, a similar procedure called a lobectomy is used to treat epilepsy.

Eating live fish

In India, live fish has been used to treat asthma patients for over 150 years. The treatment involves placing a small live fish down the patient's throat along with a secret drug pill. After undergoing this procedure, the patient must follow a strict diet for the next 45 days. Despite the lack of scientific evidence of the effectiveness of this method, every year more than half a million people resort to its help.

Treatment methods for naughty children

In the 19th century, people were probably too tired to deal with wayward, naughty children. Various soothing syrups and candies were made to pacify troublesome children. The problem with these drugs was that they contained large amounts of drugs, including morphine, chloroform, codeine, heroin, opium, and cannabis. However, thanks to all these ingredients, their effect was very effective, provided that the parents did not mind their children being completely drugged or dying from an overdose.

Electric current for the treatment of impotence

In the 19th century, a new phenomenon called "electric current" was introduced to man. While looking for different ways to use electric current, people have suggested that it can be used to solve problems in bed. During that period, a huge number of electric beds, belts and other devices were created, supposedly having the ability to return men to their "male strength". Needless to say, the idea of ​​using these devices very soon collapsed, presumably after the men began to experience some of the unpleasant effects of electricity on their lower body.

Urinotherapy

A very popular alternative medicine even today, urine therapy has been practiced by people around the world for centuries. It is believed that drinking one's own urine, applying it to the skin, or using it as an enema can cure a variety of ailments and increase a person's vitality. However, it has not been scientifically proven that taking urine or applying it externally has any effect other than causing a person to give off a foul odor. Nevertheless, urine therapy still has a huge number of adherents.

Other heinous treatments of the past

• To remove teeth without pain, doctors recommended piercing a woodlice with a needle and holding it near the affected tooth.
• In the 17th century, a popular remedy for sprains, back pain and rheumatism was a decoction of live toads with butter.
• Cystic tumors have been treated by some medical practitioners by rubbing the affected area with the dead person's hand.
• In the 14th century, the treatment of lethargy was a big problem, so every available method was used, including using loud speech near patients, pulling their hair and nose, exposing them to squealing pigs, irritating the nose to provoke sneezing, and constantly interrupting patients' sleep.
• In the 1500s, a mixture of molasses, aniseed water, and the urine of young boys was prescribed as a remedy for the plague.
• As a way to wean children from bed-wetting, 16th-century medical texts recommended letting a child eat a dead mouse.

As you can see, doctors of the past prescribed highly dubious drugs to their patients, which, as we now know, are completely ineffective, and in some cases deadly. Let's hope that none of us will have to face any of the above methods of treatment in our lives. Be healthy!

The number of treatments offered by both traditional medicine and all kinds of traditional healers (and often ordinary charlatans) will amaze you. Shocking and unusual, but noteworthy methods of alternative therapy, as well as dubious methods of treatment, we will consider below.

The cutest therapy

Treatment with animals

This zootherapy has not lost its popularity in our time. For example, dolphin therapy helps in the treatment of severe psychological trauma, hippotherapy (riding and communicating with horses) neutralizes, and quite successfully, the consequences of childhood cerebral palsy, polio, arthritis, and apitherapy, that is, treatment with bee venom, eliminates the symptoms of varicose veins and multiple sclerosis.

If you have a cat living at home, you can try the so-called feline therapy. Fluffy therapists can warm up inflamed areas with body heat, the vibration from their purr boosts immunity, and the electrostatic field of cat hair helps to normalize the nervous system.

Treatment of psoriasis with fish

At many resorts, fish foot massage (ichthyomassage) is also becoming popular - the same crumbs of garra rufa eat the rough skin of the feet. Those who have experienced such a massage on themselves claim that the sensations are quite pleasant, perhaps a little ticklish.

The Worst Treatments Ever

Larval therapy

Small white worms are planted on an infected wound, and those, liquefying the flesh with special enzymes, begin to eat rotten tissues. Healthy flesh does not interest them. Creepy method? Definitely, however, since 2004 it has been recognized as effective and officially allowed in the United States.

Urinotherapy and coprotherapy

Naturally, the use of these "products" is advised orally. Officially, the effectiveness of these methods has not been proven, which does not prevent these therapies from existing for many millennia. Calotherapy is rooted in ancient times - the benefits of absorbing excrement were discussed in the ancient Indian Vedas, because, as the Vedic sages claimed, life force leaves the body along with feces, and it can only be returned by absorbing what has come out again.

Perhaps the adherents of this disgusting method of treating diseases are right in some way, because many doctors recognize the benefits of mumiyo, and this is nothing more than the waste products of bees or rodents.

Treatment with leeches

There are many celebrities among the fans of this method. They purify the blood and rejuvenate at the same time, for example, Demi Moore and Natasha Koroleva.

Bull tapeworm weight correction

Cruel treatments

The treatment method of the ancient Britons

Treating rabies in the Saxons

Treatment for stuttering

Lobotomy

The popularity of lobotomy grew rapidly, despite the fact that many scientists signaled that lobotomy is not a therapy at all, but a brain injury that leads to irreversible degradation of the personality. However, the Moniz method was even awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1949.

In the United States, lobotomy has become popular due to economic feasibility. During the recovery period of the country after the Great Depression, it was cheaper to "treat" violent patients in this way than to keep them in mental hospitals. In 1941, the frontal lobe of the brain was cut out by the sister of the future President Kennedy at the request of her father; she remained a vegetable until the end of her life in 2005. This inhuman method of treatment also flourished in other seemingly progressive countries: the USSR, Japan, Great Britain, and the states of Scandinavia.

The truth about lobotomy

Only in the 50s, more and more doctors began to listen to the voice of reason, and the number of operations gradually decreased, but in exceptional cases, a lobotomy could still be performed. In the USSR, lobotomy was banned much earlier - in 1950.

The most unusual therapy to date

When Canavero announced his readiness to perform a human head transplant, he received thousands of requests from patients from all over the world. But the choice of the scientist fell on our compatriot for two reasons. Firstly, Valery was ready to go to the end, because he understood that every year he was getting worse and that his further fate was unenviable if he did not dare to have an operation. Secondly, Canavero was struck by the scientific knowledge of Spiridonov - the man read all the available literature on this issue. It was reported that the scientist plans to take the body from the victim of a car accident or from a criminal sentenced to death. The operation, according to Canavero's calculations, will last at least 36 hours and cost €7.5 million.

We sincerely wish Valery that the operation ends successfully, and we invite readers of the site to familiarize themselves with the interesting rating of the rarest diseases.
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In Turkey, the treatment of skin diseases (like psoriasis) with live fish is relatively common. The patient immerses the affected area of ​​his body in water with fish swimming in it, and they eat dead cells with great pleasure, leaving healthy skin intact. The small fish garra rufa is especially famous for its healing talents. After a course of treatment with such doctors with red tail fins, the condition of patients improves for six months, or even more. Not surprisingly, Turkey has banned the export of these valuable fish.

bee venom for arthritis

Bee stings, of course, are quite painful, but they can relieve inflammation of the joints in rheumatoid arthritis. In a number of alternative medicines, including traditional Chinese, live bee stings are used to treat not only arthritis, but also shingles and eczema.

In 2010, an experiment conducted by specialists from the University of Sao Paulo showed that bee venom does contain a huge amount of substances that prevent the development of inflammatory processes. Actually, with this, scientists only confirmed what practitioners have known for several centuries. In addition, studies have shown that bee sting can not only relieve the symptoms of arthritis, but even prevent their occurrence!

snake massage

One of the most unusual types of massage was mastered in Israel. Here, six snakes are placed on the backs of customers at once, and different species are used - from the California king snake and the spotted climbing snake to the striated king snake.

Large reptiles relieve deep muscle cramps and pain, smaller ones create the effect of light vibration. A session of snake massage in the salon costs $ 70, but they say there is no end to those who wish.

Larvae for surgical treatment of wounds

Carnivorous insect larvae are placed directly into the open wound, where they begin to eat the rotting flesh, leaving healthy areas untouched. This is a great advantage of the larvae - in order to clean the wound, surgeons have to remove healthy tissue as well; as a result, the wound becomes even larger, and the bleeding increases, not to mention the pain that the patient has to endure.

Studies conducted in France in 2012 suggest that maggot therapy can reduce both the duration of treatment and its cost by several (up to ten) times.

Dolphins against depression and autism

Dolphins are a symbol of peace and serenity for many world cultures. However, it is still a mystery why simply being around them helps with some forms of mental illness.

A study conducted in 2005 at the University of Leicester (England) showed that thanks to short sessions of communication with dolphins, the condition of depressed patients improved significantly after just two weeks. The same treatment is very effective in treating children with autism who have difficulty with verbal communication.

Ingestion of live fish for asthma

Another method of fish treatment is practiced by the Bathini Goud brothers from India. Every year, thousands of asthma sufferers come to them, each of whom the brothers (completely free of charge) give to swallow a live fish called "Asian snakehead", having previously put some plant mixture in the fish's mouth, the composition of which is kept in the strictest confidence. This secret, according to the Bathini Goud family legend, was revealed by a saint to their ancestor 160 years ago - on the condition that it be kept secret. “The medicine will lose its power if it becomes a means of profit,” the brothers say.

Dogs against diabetes and epilepsy

Some sense organs are much better developed in dogs than in humans. Research shows that many of them can sense when their host's blood sugar levels are low or high and dangerous. Dogs can even be specially trained to recognize the signs of an impending epileptic attack, alert their owners, and bring them medication. Especially the help of dogs helps out when it comes to sick children who may not wake up at night when hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia occurs. If there is such a dog in the house, moms and dads do not need to set an alarm clock to check on their child's condition every couple of hours.

Man is a weak creature, he is subject to physical diseases, which often cause a lot of trouble. However, despite all the difficulties, "homo sapiens" still learned to overcome them. Today we will tell the ailments invented by mankind ...

In those years when nothing was known about such a science as pharmacology, people in the treatment of diseases acted exclusively empirically, before finding the right medicine, traditional healers "killed" more than one hundred people. Today, some methods of treating our ancestors cause, to put it mildly, a shock, however, you should not negatively perceive the information that you will now become the owners of.

Syrup for children with morphine

Hundreds of years ago, children were treated with morphine syrup, if the child suffered from an illness that caused severe pain, the doctors “treated” him with narcotic syrup, for a while the baby returned to normal, plunging into a state of sleep. If he died, and this happened often enough, it was believed that this was the result of an illness incompatible with life, and not at all a cure.

heroin used to treat cough

Do you remember what remedies are used to treat cough today? Quite pleasant potions and herbs, but meanwhile, our ancestors "thought" to get rid of this disease with the help of heroin, it was enough to take a certain amount of a narcotic substance, and the cough went away. Naturally, no one suspected the consequences!

Treatment of depression with an awl driven into the head

In 1949, the scientist who developed this strange treatment for depression was awarded the Nobel Prize. Nearly 70,000 people agreed to a craniotomy to get rid of psychological problems. Of course, after they hit your head, it is unlikely that there will be time and a desire to discuss far-fetched problems. By the way, this method of treatment was called lobotomy.

Urinotherapy

The method of treating diseases of the human body with the help of urine is used to this day, many people really believe that they can get rid of ailments by drinking a glass of urine on an empty stomach, well, this is their right ...

Treatment of female hysteria with vaginal massage

Such a disease as female hysteria is rarely talked about in medical circles today, but in the old days it was very common, it was treated with the help of vaginal massage. The doctor helped the woman relax with his hands and get rid of irritability and aggression.

Treatment with poisonous mushrooms

With the help of a poisonous fly agaric mushroom - it still remains a mystery, but the fact remains that this method is really effective! However, you should not experiment and eat, cut into pieces and fried fly agaric, it must be prepared according to a special recipe, only in this case there will be no consequences !!!