Harrowing healing.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Briefly Noted - Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages - Brief article - Book review

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Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages (Perigee) reads like the old Saturday Night Live sketch in which Steve Martin played "Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber." While healers once believed "a disease like your daughter's was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft," Theodoric tells a patient's mother, "nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach."

Author Nathan Belofsky shows that sketch was too accurate to count as parody. But readers...