Medicine once harbored true horrors in times when scientific advancement was still quite archaic. This is because, at that time, the lack of equipment hindered anatomy and physiology studies. Consequently, everything was very inductive and rudimentary in the ancient medical treatments. Even today it is possible to understand that many of them actually harmed the health of patients and are strictly prohibited.
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Contrary to current times, when doctors encourage blood transfusions, in the past it was believed that excess blood was harmful. However, it is quite difficult to imagine what the “ideal” amount would be, so the ancient Greeks believed that it was the minimum possible. Therefore, “bleeding” was common in cases of fever, infection and even superficial wounds. And it is worth mentioning that the method was also quite controversial: the leeches were responsible for draining the blood.
This method, despite being quite bizarre, did not happen in a reality as old as the one in the previous example. In fact, the use of worms for allergy treatment happened in the last century, in the 1970s. That's because a group of researchers noticed that people who had worm infections had less allergy than those who didn't. In this way, this association was created, which fortunately did not last long until it was refuted. But while that didn't happen, dozens of people ingested worms through the respiratory tract to treat allergies.
The Portuguese neurologist Antônio Egas Moniz even won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for this technique. In this case, a lobotomy is a small incision so that the prefrontal lobe fiber bundle moves away from the brain. With that, it was noticed that there was a drastic reduction of hysterical events in alienated people.
However, the method was supposed to be an emergency measure and in irreversible cases, which did not happen, since that many have undergone this experience in an attempt to control unwanted behavior. As a result, several individuals entered a state of vegetation, which made the technique fall into disuse.
In the United States of the 19th century, doctors incorporated an ancient indigenous knowledge: that spider webs healed. With that, they started to literally put a spider over certain injuries, and the most impressive thing is that it worked! Much is still being discussed today about this method, but we already have enough technology to no longer need it.
