Today we have a pretty good grasp of what causes illness. We know about infections, carcinogens, pollution, genetics, anatomical abnormalities and the consequences of a poor diet. We also have effective pharmaceutical and surgical treatments, albeit not always as effective as we would like. But at least they are based upon science. But that has only been the case since we’ve had a good grasp on how the body functions, which is basically the last hundred or so years. Before that desperate people resorted to some pretty wacky treatments, at least wacky in retrospect. At the time I suppose they seemed rational. The ancient Greeks introduced the idea of “like cures like,” later adopted by homeopaths. A poisonous snake was unaffected by its own poison, so Greek physicians believed snakebite should be treated by applying the flesh of a snake, or a concoction made by boiling a snake, to the wound.
This same principle was used in the fourteenth century when Europe was struck by the Black Death. This plague which killed about a million and a half people in Britain alone was believed to be spread by bad smells. That of course was not the case. The plague is a bacterial infection that is spread by fleas which live on rodents such as rats. Rodents are more likely to inhabit filthy areas which smell so there may actually be an association between the plague and smells but the smell does not cause the disease. Nevertheless, the belief was that the disease was caused by deadly vapors, and in the spirit of like cures like, the foul vapors could be warded off by other evil smells. Some physicians even recommended keeping goats inside homes to produce a therapeutic stink. Even more bizarre was the suggestion of using human flatus which was supposed to be stored in a jar and inhaled when the plague struck. How people were supposed to make the collection isn’t clear.
The flatus treatment sounds just about as crazy as a doctor’s recommendation in 1728 for curing coughs with snail syrup. Take garden snails, early in the morning while the dew is upon them, he said, take off their shells; slit them; and with half a pound of sugar, put them in a bag and hang them in a cellar and the syrup will melt and drop through, ready to be swallowed when a cough appears. That recommendation is about as hard to swallow as the snail juice. Modern science hasn’t wiped out all outlandish therapies. In Hong Kong snake soup remains the remedy for a cold with venomous snakes like the king cobra being the most highly prized ingredient. Sometimes a living snake is skinned and the gall bladder removed to be used as a cure-all. The treatment does have a dangerous side effect. Escape of snakes from shops is a problem
