You probably wouldn’t eat a fish or drink a frog smoothie if you were feeling ill, but most of people will. Watch the video and discover the 10 Most Nasty Medical Treatments that Could Save Your Life.
Most of us have fantasized about living in the past — seventeenth-century France, Rome of the emperors, sailing with Viking explorers. But there is an aspect of the past that can be guaranteed to send us scurrying back to the reassuring present — health and medicine. No matter how fascinating living in earlier centuries may have been, the moment you got ill, your chances of survival were highly debatable and the likelihood that your treatment would involve the ingestion or application of something disgusting were pretty high.
If you thought bloodletting, maggots and leeches were all outdated in our modern world, you were wrong. In fact, they are only a handful of the many bizarre medical procedures that will leave you both disgusted and fascinated with their effectiveness when you read about strange medical treatments that are actually quite useful.
Medicine isn’t pretty, but sometimes it’s even less pretty than normal. Here are ten such procedures and treatments that aren’t for the squeamish, but hey, they seem to actually work.
10Frog Smoothie
Peruvians drink pulverized frogs blended with herbs to combat asthma and fertility issues. Though not scientifically proven, many residents also drink it as a remedy for a low sex-drive.
09Natural Orifice Surgery
Patients have their abdominal organs removed through their mouths or vaginas. The first operation saw a gall bladder extracted through the mouth to avoid incisions.
08Leeches
Leeches remove pooled blood from blocked veins. It also used to help skin grafts by removing blood collecting under the graft.
07Maggot Therapy
Maggots can be applied to wounds to remove infected skin and curb inflammation. They only eat dead tissue, leaving healthy tissue untouched, speeding up the healing process.
06Pregnant Horse Urin
The urine of pregnant mares makes Premarin, a hormone replacement treatment. In 2002 nine million women used Premarin until negative side effects including hearth attacks were reported.
05Breast Milk
Researchers have discovered a compound breast milk able to kill cancer cells. Studies led one patient to drink his daughter´s milk hoping to shrink tumors. Results were inconclusive.
04Swallowing Live Fish
Practiced in Southern India, asthmatics swallow a 5 cm fish covered in herbal paste. Administrated by one family who claim the fish clears the throat, thousands visit them annually.
03Intestinal Worm Therapy
Parasitic worms are swallowed or crawl into wounds to treat bowel disease and ALS. Heightens immune systems have been reduced by modern-day cleanliness.
02Teeth Transplanted into Eyes
A tooth removed from the patient, placed in the eye, can restore sight. A hole drilled in the tooth holds a prosthetic lens. Implanted in the eye, it corrects corneal scars.
01Fecal Microbiota Transplantation
Donated faces are placed in patients suffering from renal failure and Crohn´s disease. The feces replace microbes missing from the gut. Used since 4th century China where it was known as Yellow soup.
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