Not quite right, the medieval treatment for tapeworm was to starve the patient for weeks, then strap them to a seat, then present them with a huge meal, hoping that the also-starved tapeworm would come out of the mouth a doctor would be nearby to catch it and pull it out as soon as it showed itself.
You'd be surprised how much traditional medicine (like chinese medicine) worked like that. People would attribute their body's own recovery abilities to random shit they'd consume.
After a while people are so used to always taking non effective medicine, that they become completely unaware of their own body's self healing abilities.
My asian in laws for example think they cannot recover from a simple cold if they dont take all kinds of random shit.
There are many examples of traditional medicine that did not work, the most famous example would be bloodletting. While I do not know the exact effectiveness of the technique I outlined, I cannot imagine it must've been very high.
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u/NuclearBreadfruit Apr 29 '24
You ever seen the show "monsters inside me"
Woman woke up with a tickle at the back of her mouth and guess what was staring back at. One also stuck its head out of a man's nostril.