Red Light Therapy Bringing Healing Technology into the 21st Century

For many, many years there has been a great urge amongst the human race to find elixirs to heal and cure afflictions. There are a wealth of natural and not-so-natural treatments still out there that claim to fix ailments of all sorts, and a huge illegal trade still exists particularly in the Far East which is based on the sale of rare animal parts which are traditionally said to have healing properties. A lot of such bizarre treatments really don’t seem that appealing – here are just a few!





1. Leeches


Even as late as Victorian times, British doctors seemed to be obsessed with the vampirical worms that are leeches. First employed by the Ancient Egyptians over 2,500 years ago, leeches were used to draw out "impure" blood from the body – treating headaches, gout and a wealth of other afflictions. Amazingly, in 2004 the US government approved an application from a French pharmaceutical firm to market leeches for medicinal purposes.





2. Potatoes


Got a little bit of a problem with sweating – try a potato! Sweat no more by cutting a potato in half and rubbing it under your armpits! Bizarrely some people swear by this. People nearby smelling potatoes swear at them...





3. Homemade Botox


DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! A more modern "treatment" – some women use their vacuum cleaners to plump up their lips by applying the nozzle to their smackers. Not a good idea if you ask me – you can risk bruising, scarring and infection with this one.





4. Mummies


And not the spoonful of sugar-type mummies, oh no. We’re talking mummies from Egypt who were ground up as late as in Victorian times for medicinal value. Apparently people believed drinking some bits of dead people would cure all their afflictions, rather than make them very ill which is more what I believe.





5. Mercury


Yes, as if eating dead people wasn’t enough, medieval people also used to drink the highly toxic liquid metal that is mercury for birth control or even as a cure for syphilis. Even just contact with mercury isn’t good for you, but drinking it can cause paralysis, madness and death. And it did too, it just took a while for people to realise the "cure" was not really working.





And believe me, that is just a snapshot of the fantastical and bizarre treatments that people have used in the past and present, which I think suffice to say, didn’t really work. Fear not though, for there are natural healing treatments out there that DO work, and ARE safe – treatments such as red light therapy, which is used to heal wounds and spots – just do your research and don’t go eating too many mummies.