[QUOTE=Cartooniverse]
Let’s see now. Leeches? Right here.
Gotcher meditation right here.
And, since it was mentioned in refuting your (darned narrowminded) statement, let us not overlook the spectacular power of maggots.
People are reacting with real vitriol in their protestations that accupuncture does not work.
Oh- I was in line to enter a pain study at NYU Medical Center in NYC about 2 years ago. They were using leeches. I didn’t make it because the study was ONLY for arthritis in the knees. I have lower back pain. Pity.
The saliva in the leeches has an anaesthetic that has ( apparently ) zero side-effects. It is localized and remains for weeks if not longer in some patients. Hence the pain-relieving aspect.
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They have found uses for maggots, but actually they were considered the worst sort of infectio in “the good old days” and since the maggots were disease filled infected ones, not nice clean raised in a lab sterile maggots, they were likely right. Maggots meant that the flies have got your open wound, not a Good thing at all.
Yes, they have found medical usages for leeches. Nevertheless, The Medieval Theory of the 4 Humours is outdated quackery. It is pure co-incidence that leeches have been found to have medical usages in a few rare circumstances, as they were not used in that way as treatment under the The Medieval Theory of the 4 Humours .
From Wiki:*.The popularity of bloodletting in Greece was reinforced by the ideas of Galen, after he discovered the veins and arteries were filled with blood, not air as was commonly believed at the time. There were two key concepts in his system of bloodletting. The first was that blood was created and then used up, it did not circulate and so it could ‘stagnate’ in the extremities. The second was that humoral balance was the basis of illness or health, the four humours being blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, relating to the four Greek classical elements of air, water, earth and fire. Galen believed that blood was the dominant humour and the one in most need of control. In order to balance the humours, a physician would either remove ‘excess’ blood (plethora) from the patient or give them an emetic to induce vomiting, or a diuretic to induce urination.
Galen created a complex system of how much blood should be removed based on the patient’s age, constitution, the season, the weather and the place. Symptoms of plethora were believed to include fever, apoplexy, and headache. The blood to be let was of a specific nature determined by the disease: either arterial or venous, and distant or close to the area of the body affected. He linked different blood vessels with different organs, according to their supposed drainage. For example, the vein in the right hand would be let for liver problems and the vein in the left hand for problems with the spleen. The more severe the disease, the more blood would be let. Fevers required copious amounts of bloodletting…Leeches could also be used. The withdrawal of so much blood as to induce syncope (fainting) was considered beneficial, and many sessions would only end when the patient began to swoon.*
Fevers are no longer treated by leeches, nor are headaches, or apoplexy.
Trepanning also finds itself in use today- rarely, true, but it is recognized. But not to let the demons out. It’s modern medical use is completely unrelated to Demonology or Possession- both of which are now considered nonsense scientifically speaking.
The needles used in acupuncture seem to work sometimes on certain conditions. Nevertheless;* Acupuncture, based upon “the free flow of qi (a difficult-to-translate concept that pervades Chinese philosophy and is commonly translated as “vital energy”), blood and body fluids (jin ye) throughout the body”* is outdated quackery. Although the needles do seem to work sometimes, for some ailments, they do not need to be placed in a manner according to “Traditional Chinese Medicine”- in other words, it seems to be another co-incidence.
Yes, leeches do work- but in a way completely un-related to Theory of the 4 Humours. (which has been proven to be psuedo-scientific nonsense) The needles also work, but also in a way completely un-related to the flow of qi- which is also psuedo-scientific nonsense.
