If you go back several centuries, medical advice and knowledge was certainly far more primitive than it is today, but that is not something that we should ridicule people for. Instead, it makes more sense to try to understand the reasons behind some of their apparent cures, especially when you discover that they did not do anything for those that were ill.
Take this as a prime example.
Throughout history, there have been several outbreaks of the plague, and each time there were different attempts to create a cure even though the knowledge that they had regarding the disease was very limited. One theory that seems to have been able to hang around for some time was that bad smells could effectively drive away the plague.
Of course, the mere thought of a bad smell being so powerful to cure the plague is completely bizarre to us, but to the people of the time it made so much sense. It ultimately meant that some of the cures that were thrown around included the use of both urine and animal dung due to the stench that it was able to produce. The only problem was that there was no way that it could cure the disease, and it was actually more likely to result in helping the plague to spread amongst the population.
So, the next time your doctor suggests something that is a bit different as a cure, just stop and think if it is making sense or if it sounds far too strange to be true.