Long before orthodox medicine took center stage in the health care practices around the world people who were sick used to visit different kind of doctors. These doctors were not the steth-wielding, tech-savvy, white-coated medical geniuses of today. Mostly, they were bearded, wizened and gnarled humans looking less like physicians and more like witches or wizards. But they were revered, loved and even feared because of one particular skill they possessed the healing touch.
In the early days of civilization, a vast majority of people were cut off from formal medical care. Competent physicians were a luxury, to be enjoyed only by the super-rich and royalty. For everyone else, there was the local witch-doctor who was respected for his or her in-depth knowledge of folk medicine. This was the man or woman who treated everything from boils to gangrene, from cesarean to malaria and even small pox.
What is astonishing is that many of these so-called doctors effectively cured their patients. What is even more interesting is that these medicines have lost none of their charms with the passage of time and more and more of them are finding their rightful place in mainstream...