Medicine in Days of Yore

I know i don't normally blog on a Wednesday, but I felt inspired, so here we go:

Last night I was reading the second book in the Sandra Gulland Josephine Bonaparte trilogy. The section I was reading described how, when Josephine suffered from a rotten tooth, the doctor carried out the following treatment:

First, he yanked out Josephine's rotten molar (giving her a cuff about the head first, to dull the pain, of course). then he went into another room, where he yanked out the corresponding molar of a poor peasant girl. He returned to Josephine with the peasant girl's molar, jabbed this molar into the place where Josephine's rotten tooth had been; wrapped her head and jaw tightly in a bandage and told her wait a few days for the tooth to take root.

There was much shock and surprise when, as soon as Josephine unwrapped her head, her new molar fell out.

This treatment caused me to have many delightful flights of fancy about other such medical treatments of a similar ilk from days of yore, and I decided to give Sandra Gulland a run for her money and write my own fictional diary. Mine is called "The Diary of Doctor Dumweevil" and below is an excerpt.

July 15, 1795

Patient complains he is going bald. I have taken hair from my goat and glued it to his head with slug slime. Think it looks very good. Have promised him his wife, Grunhilda, will be able to run her fingers through it. He should even be able to go swimming with it, though I do not advise swimming due to the likelihood of catching swamp vapors and dying.

July 16, 1795

Patient has returned. Goat hairs have failed to take root in his head.
Hmmm...

August 15, 1795

Patient had arm blown off on battlefield. Couldn't find his arm, but found another random limb on the ground. Attached this limb to his stump with tree sap and dung and tied it on with a bandage soaked in cow's urine. Arm should attach in matter of days.

August 17, 1795

Arm has fallen off. Now stump seems to be riddled with infection.
Curious....
Think I will bleed him.

August 18, 1795

Patient has died. Hmmmm....

And so on...you can see how this could provide hours of fun.

Female problems would have been much easier for poor Dr. Dumweevil, as they were always caused by the mysterious female organs and their strange disturbances, and were almost always cured by either slapping the woman soundly, removing the offending organs, or using a fancy vibrating contraption on her nether regions to bring about a "spasmodic episode" (otherwise known, nowadays, as an orgasm).

Now that's a treatment modern medicine seems to have abandoned, for reasons that escape me.

How great would it be to call into work and say:

"I can't come in to work today, I'm way too sick. The doctor says I have to stay home and have 12 orgasms."

Now that's good doctorin' !!