7/5/2002: Coin rubbing illness

[Undertoad]

Here's one for the X-Files.

In Cambodia some of the doctors have an odd quack therapy called cao gio, or coin rubbing. They rub heated oils on the back, and then firmly run the edge of a coin over the skin, causing marks like the above. It's supposed to release the "wind", or "energies" that are causing a person's illness.

In this case, though, the patient became ill. At first he just had vomiting and diarrhea, which he apparently put up with for a week. Then he started to become confused, at which point he wound up in a real hospital. For a few days he was confused and "treated with supportive therapy" -- I suppose they had a nurse hold his hand and say pleasant things since they didn't know what else to do with him. On the third day he came out of it, his skin healing.

It turns out he had camphor intoxication. The camphor in the oil on his back was slowly absorbed into his body, with the aid of the open wounds. Slowly he became sicker and sicker.

And this, friends, is why truth must be the only bias in science.

(From JAMA via Medpundit.)