Everyone knows about the weird and wonderful medical treatments that doctors used to prescribe (leeches anyone?), but what is less well known is the subset of doctors who specialised in wacky treatments. For example, up until the end of the 19th century, doctors whose primary tools were toads existed. They mostly tackled a skin ailment, colloquially known as the Kings Evil, but medically called scrofula. This nasty disease is a form of tuberculosis that most often causes the neck to swell, and it was thought that a king could cure it by touch, hence its name. Kings didnt often go about fondling peasants though, and this is where Toad Doctors came in. In an attempt to cure the scrofula, they would put a live toad in a bag and hang it around the neck of an afflicted person. Sometimes the poor toad would get an even rawer deal, and have only its leg torn off to go in the bag instead. People had believed in the supposed healing qualities of the toad since Roman times, but by the late 1800s the tide of public opinion was starting to change. Toad cures were more and more called a superstition, and Toad Doctors themselves were labelled quacks.
