Strange Medical Treatments from the Past that Are Used Today

There are many treatments performed in ancient medical history that were considered strange and bizarre. They were considered unscientific and dangerous. A few of these were later shown to be scientifically valid and are being used today in modern medicine with improvements. Considering the lack of tools, scientific knowledge, and modern microscopes they did pretty well. Often therapies, treatments, and herbs used historically are found later to have scientific validity.

Bizarre Treatments from The Past Used Today

Examination Of Urine: In Ancient Europe, doctors used a patients urine to diagnose disease. They observed the smell, consistency, and even taste. They did not example it for bacteria because they lacked the knowledge to do so at that time.

Today urine is one of the important diagnostic tests for diagnosis. The smell of urine does show disease and illness in some cases. Examples of this are a foul smelling urine in UTI infections; a sweet smell in diabetic urine; a musty urine smell in liver disease or other metabolic diseases; and ammonia smelling urine in dehydration. The appearance of the urine can show the presence of blood and bacteria as in a kidney or UTI infection. So they knew the significance of the urine in disease but did not have the knowledge to take it to the level we have available today.

Maggot Therapy: Used historically in World War 1 after famous surgeon, William Baer, observed that the terrible wounds infested with maggots were the quickest to heal. Maggots were used for years to treat gangrene, bone infections, and dirty, infected gunshot wounds. When antibiotics were introduced, the use of maggots was discontinued.

Pass forward to this century with 70,000 diabetic amputations a year and with many bacteria strains resistant to antibiotics. Now today they are again being used. The common green-bottle fly maggots are the species used. These baby fly maggots only eat dead tissue not live tissue so that is why they are used in medicine. Some studies show that the use of maggots can save 40 to 50 percent of limbs, fingers, and toes from being amputated. People are willing to undergo this strange therapy to prevent amputations.

Maggots remove the dead tissue with their rough exterior skin; they secret enzymes that break down the proteins in diseased tissue, then eat that dead tissue; their presence improves oxygen supply to the infected area; and its secretions act as a potent antibiotic to the wound area; and the excreted fluids beak down the shell that protects bacteria from being influenced by antibiotics.

Labs today are producing medical grade maggots to 40 countries. In the US it is an approved therapy with about 2000 centers using maggot therapy. Its main use today is to prevent diabetic amputations and to clean infected wounds, and wounds with gangrene.

Leaches: There are hundreds of species of leaches. The use of leaches for medicinal purposes goes back in history to Hippocrates. Leach medical therapy is seen on the walls of pharaohs tombs. Leach medicine can be found in Greek and Roman writings. They were used to treat battle wounds in Europe during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This may sound crazy but this practice so routed in ancient history is used today in modern medicine.

The use of leaches in medicine was approved by the FDA in 2004. They are considered tools of medicine. Today 15 species of medical leaches are used to treat conditions such as abscesses, painful joints, glaucoma, rheumatic diseases, some venous diseases and thrombosis. How could the use of leaches help a medical condition? When leaches are feeding on the tissue, they secrete a substance into the wound area that can inhibit blood coagulation; dissolve fibrin; is anti-inflammatory; has antibiotic properties; increases flow of blood to the site; and relaxes blood vessels.

Examples of how they are used in medicine include: Leaches are used to eat the blood that pools under skin grafts in burn patients; they eat the pooled blood in a blocked vein or artery. They are used to help restore blood circulation to veins or body parts that have been reattached.

References:

http://www.leeches.biz/medicine-leech.htm

http://www.leeches.biz/index.htm

http://whyfiles.org/2010/maggots-leeches-parasitic-worms/

http://whyfiles.org/2010/maggots-leeches-parasitic-worms/

http://www.healthblurbs.com/causes-of-abnormal-smell-odor-or-color-of-your-urine-pee/