3 ms·
> When the skull was presented to a meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, the audience refused to believe that anyone could have survived a trephining op
by pazimzadeh 5y ago
> When the skull was presented to a meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, the audience refused to believe that anyone could have survived a trephining operation carried out by a Peruvian Indian. Aside from the racism characteristic of the time, the skepticism was fueled by the fact that in the very best hospitals of the day, the survival rate from trephining (and many other operations) rarely reached 10 percent, and thus the operation was viewed as one of the most perilous surgical procedures. The main reason for the low survival rate was the deadly infections then rampant in hospitals
The elephant in the room is that many cultures were far more advanced in their prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. The Incas figured out that certain fermented plants had health benefits, which we now know is because they contained bacteria which produced penicillin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocosh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocosh.
The Persians and Greeks similarly used fermented hay for their antibiotic properties, although they hadn't developed the microscope to understand why it worked.
How to make penicillin at home:
https://www.primalsurvivor.net/make-penicillin-home/ https://www.primalsurvivor.net/make-penicillin-home/
- BitwiseFool 5y agoI am continually amazed at how human beings can find a process that works without knowing the 'real' reason behind why it is effective.
- elliottkember 5y agoThis is exactly the scientific process! Observe results, reproduce conditions, and then figure out how it works later.
- gnu8 5y agoThis is what happened when the cure for scurvy was discovered, it was eventually lost because it was not understood that ascorbic acid was the reason behind the curative powers of certain foods. https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm
- pazimzadeh 5y agoMore along the same lines: Ancient African Cocktail: Beer and a Shot of Antibiotic https://www.livescience.com/11028-ancient-african-cocktail-beer-shot-antibiotic.html https://www.livescience.com/11028-ancient-african-cocktail-b...
- cwkoss 5y agoAyahuasca is interesting in this respect. The effects require the co-ingestion of two different plants - one contains DMT which is usually metabolized too quickly to have a psychoactive effect. The other contains a MAOI that deactivates the enzyme which deactivates DMT, allowing it to have effect. The MAOI plant does have some psychoactive effects alone - and increases the effects of many things, so that's probably how this was discovered, but still pretty amazing that people were able to figure this out through trial and error.