The war between human and disease has been the longest type of war that has been since the existence of human, and this war isn't one that humans have been winning. Sincerely, for thousands of years humans have been dying of different types of diseases and we have been looking for ways to combat them.
In other for us to conquer, we started using Humors and the Miasma theory to treat our sick. It might sound really funny now, but back then it was the deal. Before we go to Miasma, there were other methods that people have tried, like in the 1500s, people used a method known as Half-a-Mouse to treat skin infections. They would cut the mouse into half, and apply the half on a bruise, wounds, boils or any other skin infection. Do not tell me you thought it worked for a second, because that method didn't work at all. In fact, it was only giving them more infections, like if the rat carried flies which could give them other infections.
Another way humans wanted to treat themselves was using the "powder of sympathy". Like for real! who gave it that name? Actually, the powder of sympathy was used for weapon wounds, and it was spread on the weapons and not even the wound. The weapon!!!. Although in the ancient times they made a lot of errors in medicine including grinding dead people and putting them in teas, they were able to make certain successes and get certain things right when it came to treatments.
One of them is using We know that Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin but before him, people in ancient time, as back as 1500BCE had been using "Infected Barley Bread" which was mold to treat wounds. Before you say but we already have penicillin, so this isn't in use today, what about using leeches for blood letting. Although at the time, it was used to treat Tonsillitis, and Hemorrhoids, but it isn't used for that purpose today, anyways leech is still in use today. Today, we use leeches for reattachment surgeries which has to do with very fine blood vessels since leeches release anticoagulant.
Trepanation which is the act of boring a hole into the skull is another medical method that has existed for a very long time but at the time, it was done to relieve pressure from the brain. Hippocrates also talked about Trepanation for reshaping dented skulls and for a lot of other things. Today, we know it as Craniotomy which is used for epidural or subdural hematoma.
Eating poop was a another thing that was used in the past to treat for treating stomach aches and now in recent time, fecal transplant (fecal bateriotherapy) is being used to transfer good bacteria floral from one person to another via the anus. This changes the bacteria gut floral in the intestine.
While in ancient times, people didn't really know what they were doing basically, they just tried everything they could without understanding what they were doing. No doubt there were a lot of failed attempts, and some cost the lives of people, a few are still being used till date, either remodeled, or not used for the same purposes they were used at that time.
Reference
https://royalsociety.org/blog/2022/01/powders-of-sympathy/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19048798/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1260294
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6667984/
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/blood-sucking-leeches-microsurgery
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3933224/
https://thejns.org/focus/view/journals/neurosurg-focus/23/1/foc-07_07_e11.xml
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326281
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/hole-in-the-head-trepanation/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560922/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30602276/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/fecal-transplant
