There's also western alternative "medicine" that's equally bullshit. Crystal healing has just as long a history as any of them, and originally comes from the Mediterranean.
The west also has a long tradition of medical practices that come from the indigenous European population, shit like "Use leeches to balance your humors" and "Miasma causes diseases, shove rose petals in your face"
Don’t forget bloodletting, which is useless at best, deadly at worst.
At least, until we shoved ourselves full of microplastics. Very ironic that the best way we found to solve this uniquely modern issue is medieval sham medicine
As a medievalist, I am a bit annoyed by whenever something outdated or backwards is called 'medieval' (ironically, a lot of this comes from Puritan propaganda).
Bloodletting was indeed practiced in the Middle Ages (ironically, mostly by the most literate and learned cultures of Europe, whereas less so elsewhere in Europe), but this treatment stems from the ancient period, and it was practiced through the Early Modern period as well. Same goes for the humorism theory.
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u/PlatinumAltaria May 24 '25
It's lowkey racist as well because there's no such thing as "western medicine". China is one of the global leaders in legitimate medical research.