The Most Bizarre Medical Treatments
You will be surprised with the number of treatments offered by actual medicine and various HHPs (which are often charlatans). Let's consider the most shocking and unusual, but noteworthy alternative therapies and questionable treatments.![The mankind’s history sports a plethora of medical treatments The mankind’s history sports a plethora of medical treatments](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476970865.jpg)
The Cutest Therapy
Animal-Assisted Therapy
The assistance of pets and animals in certain diseases treatment comes from the ancient periods. At the end of the XVIII century, there appeared a definition of «canistherapy» in psychiatry, which suggested treating the patients by communication with the dogs instead of straitjackets. Soon, the doctors started noting a serious decline in patients’ aggression.![Today the canistherapy fastens the ill children adaptation in the society Today the canistherapy fastens the ill children adaptation in the society](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476969622.jpg)
![Pregnant women are often prescribed Dolphin therapy Pregnant women are often prescribed Dolphin therapy](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476969517.jpg)
![A phenomenon: cat therapists releases the pain A phenomenon: cat therapists releases the pain](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476969743.jpg)
The Psoriasis Treatment with Fish
There is an interesting method of treating psoriasis, the unpleasant skin disease covering all body with pink scaly plaques, in the Turkey. The practitioners prepare the bath that is filled with the alive fishes of a special small kind of carp family, Garra Rufa. After that, the patient is offered to take the bath and wait until fished would eat all ill skin.![The fish therapy becomes popular The fish therapy becomes popular](/images/stories/uzn_1411496555.jpg)
The Most Vile Treatments
Larval or Maggot Therapy
Fly larvae grow, feeding with dead flesh and all sorts of carrion. The ancient physicians noted this feature, began to use maggots to cleanse wounds rotting. Nowadays, we can see the increasing of interest in this seemingly medieval method of treatment. This is explained by several bacteria strains that gained resistance to antibiotics. Nevertheless, the microorganisms can’t survive in the surrounding of the voracious maggots. This is a paradox, but the larvae of flies, which are almost the dirtiest insect, are not contagious.![The bizarre method of healing the wounds with maggots The bizarre method of healing the wounds with maggots](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476969868.jpg)
Urine and Feces Therapy
There is a category of HHP, who see human waste products like urine and feces as the best medicine. According to such urine therapists, urine and feces can cure cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and allergies.![Urine therapy is a popular but disputable method of curing Urine therapy is a popular but disputable method of curing](/images/stories/uzn_1411496904.jpg)
Feces therapy goes far back into antiquity. People said about the benefits of excrement eating in the ancient Indian Vedas. The Vedic sages claimed that the life force goes out of the body along with the feces and it is possible to return it by eating it back only.
Perhaps proponents of this disgusting method of disease treatment may be right. Many doctors agree with the benefits of Shilajit using, which is nothing like the bees or rodents waste.
Leech Therapy
A famous fairytale hero Duremar turned to know a lot about medicine since he preferred leech therapy to other methods of treatment. Hirudotherapy as the larvae therapy is a very unpleasant procedure, but many experts do not hurry to write it off as a fail method. The essence of the medication is to allow the leeches to drink your blood after sticking to the body. The little vampires improve and restore the blood flow and purify the blood in the human body.![Hirudotherapy is no more an exotic way of treatment Hirudotherapy is no more an exotic way of treatment](/images/stories/uzn_1411495830.jpg)
Tapeworms for Weight Loss
Long before the medicine found out that the presence of tapeworm in the body can lead to death, people swallowed larvae to lose weight with all seriousness. However, today we can also meet the lazy people who are willing to put their lives at risk to lose weight without sport and diet. Tapeworm larvae are sold in some countries nowadays. For example, people sell «two-phase» pills in Thailand, one containing the tapeworm larvae, and the second containing an anthelmintic drug. Patients should take them with a greater interval, of course.![Don’t even try to loose weight with the help of tapewarms Don’t even try to loose weight with the help of tapewarms](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476970034.jpg)
Severe Medical Treatments
Various severe medical treatments come to us from the dark Middle Ages, when everything unknown, including diseases, automatically attributed to Satan. As a result, such thing ought to be destroyed using the most uncompromising ways. However, some modern doctors went even further than their predecessors...The Ancient Britons Medical Treatments
It was uncomfortable to cure long the seriously ill neighbors in the ancient times. So, as a rule, people used to stop the disease with the only win method, looking like the ancient euthanasia. The patient was just throwing off the cliff when another therapy has failed.![Throwing of the cliff is a medical treatment too Throwing of the cliff is a medical treatment too](/images/stories/uzn_1411496674.jpg)
Saxons Treatment of Rabies
The Britons contemporaries, the Saxons, have also invented their own alternative ways of healing. Thus, they used to treat the dangerous and almost incurable disease, rabies, with the physiotherapy in ancient times. The patient was tied to a post and flogged with a whip, made of the special skin of a Dolphin. They believed that it would help to expel «demons» out of people. However, most often this whip method helped to expel the last breath out of the patient instead.![Whip made of the Dolphin skin is an unusual medical instrument Whip made of the Dolphin skin is an unusual medical instrument](/images/stories/uzn_1411496830.jpg)
Stuttering Treatment
An unenviable fate was offered to stuttering people in antiquity too. To restore the speech, the doctors cauterized the patient’s tongue with a hot iron.![The Middle Ages is the Middle Ages The Middle Ages is the Middle Ages](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476970149.jpg)
Lobotomy
Lobotomy is a partial removal of the brain lobes, which was first held in 1936. Portuguese physician Egas Moniz believed that cutting a part of the frontal lobe of the brain can help in the treatment of mental illness. During the year he performed 20 such operations and has published the following statistics: seven patients recovered, another seven had marked improvement and the rest showed neither progress nor deterioration.![Before and after lobotomy Before and after lobotomy](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476970220.jpg)
In the US, lobotomy has become popular due to the economic expediency. During the recovery of the country economy after the Great Depression, it was cheaper to treat violent patients by this method than to keep them in mental hospitals. In 1941, medics cut the frontal lobes out from the sister of the future President Kennedy at the request of her father. In 2005, she went bananas til the end of her days. This inhuman method of treatment flourished in other seemingly progressive countries like USSR, Japan, UK, Scandinavia.
Only in 50-s a lot of physicians begin to listen to the voice of reason, and the number of operations has gradually decreased. However, in exceptional cases, a lobotomy still could hold. In the USSR the lobotomies were prohibited much earlier – in 1950.
The Most Unusual Modern Therapies
We can refer such ways of treatment as body and head transplantation to the last developments of the medicine inventors. The body transplantation means that the patient can take the brain only for his or her own part. The head transplantation means that the patient would have a new body.![Soon, the human head transplantation may turn into reality Soon, the human head transplantation may turn into reality](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476970420.jpg)
![Two-headed dog of Demikhov Two-headed dog of Demikhov](/images/stories/uzn_1411497025.jpg)
![Sergio Canavero plans to transplant the human head to the end of 2017 Sergio Canavero plans to transplant the human head to the end of 2017](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476970585.jpg)
It was reported that the scientist plans to take the body of car accident victim or a criminal facing the death penalty. According to the Canavero calculations, the operation will last at least 36 hours, and its cost will be €7.5 million.
![Human head transplant volunteer Valery Spiridonov Human head transplant volunteer Valery Spiridonov](/images/stories2016/uzn_1476970668.jpg)