Not sure how true this is, but It's ****ing funny just to read it regardless. How unfortunate it must have been for the average peasant, not to be able to afford such treatment.
Wow, he took one hell of a beating. Good read though, I never would've imagined human skull was used in medicine at one time.
That story can't be anywhere near accurate! How can a guy that has a stroke just from getting ready to shave, survive even half of that torture? Pics or it didn't happen
George Washington died in similar circumstances as late as 1800. The funny thing is that treatments like acupuncture or homeopathy are based on equally ridiculous principles - it's just lucky that they're not so deadly.
I've been told that for a significant part of history you had the highest life expectancy if you were middle-classed, rich enough to afford enough to eat but poor enough to avoid the attentions of a doctor. I don't think its sensible to ignore the medical benefits of the placebo effect, if someone believes that sitting in a room full of special crystals or getting jabbed with needles will make them better then its entirely possible that it will, not through any physical effect but because they believe it will. Moriquendi
While people should of course be allowed to go out and buy some magic beans if they want, I think they should be made aware that the vast majority of evidence is not in favour of their efficacy. There have been situations in the past where people have used homoeopathic remedies for the 'treatment' of malaria and cancer. I'm sure you can guess what happened. Besides, a good doctor will maximise the placebo effect by appearing confident and knowledgeable, building up a good rapport with their patient. That way, the patient gets the benefit of real medication while the placebo effect enhances their recovery.
That's exactly my point, I think the placebo effect should be one arrow in a doctors quiver alongside medication and other things but it seems to me that it's frowned upon as being less than honest. If, for example, a doctor were to prescribe me painkillers that he knew were a placebo I wouldn't have a problem with that. If they worked then I got the benefit without the possibility of damaging my body, if they didn't then I'd go back to the doc and he could either 'fess up and prescribe the real drug or just prescribe the real drug without telling me so as to preserve any possible additive placebo effect. Anyway Charlie 2 was obviously a double hard b*****d, I can't imagine living pre anaesthetics and pre antibiotics would be much fun at all. Moriquendi
I agree about homeopathy, but acupuncture is a very very valid form of medicine, and requires considerable skill to pull it off - but it does work.
You would be amazed to know how much of modern medicine is based not on evidence, but rather on things that seem like they should work. In my own field (emergency and pre-hospital medicine) every week some device, drug, or procedure that we've been using for years is discarded because someone finally did a study to see if it really works and discovers that it doesn't. Case in point is CPR. When I first got trained it was 5 compressions and then 1 breath, then it moved to 15 and 2. Now we're at 30 and 2 for trained responders and compressions only for the general public. The standard on CPR changes almost every year as new and often conflicting studies are added to the body of knowledge. Another example is MAST pants, which are inflatible rubber trousers that are intended to force blood from the legs back into the core to treat shock. In the late 70s and 80s they were all the rage and were standard equipment on ambulances. in the 90s however several new studies showed that they really didn't work any better than putting the patient in a head-down position. Now days, they're still carried, but no one uses them. There are literally hundreds of similar examples of devices, methods and drugs that have come into and out of vouge on the flimsiest of evidence, and I have no doubt that in 50 years we will look back on today and wonder how we could have been so dumb and barbaric in treating our patients.
