Some things in life have a way of making their way round again. For centuries curing illness and ailments was reliant on herbs, traditions, beliefs and all manner of weird and wonderful methods. With the onset of modern science so many of these cures or restorative treatments became not only frowned upon but were also proved to be ineffectual or deemed more harmful than good.
The 21st century though, has seen a boom time for alternative therapies and medicine and many traditional cures have regained popularity or have been reproduced with a modern touch up.
Despite the increased acceptance of these legacy methods of treatment, there are still those that attract attention for being weird, unsafe or downright just too unusual to be believed. One such tradition currently in the spotlight is the “fish medicine” of Andhra Pradesh.
For decades there’s been a two day festival in the Southern Indian state where thousands of participants take the controversial “cure” of swallowing live murrel fish spread with an herbal paste. For over 150 years, people have been taking the fish medicine as a cure for asthma.
Campaigners claimed the practice poses a risk to health and lobbied for children under the age of 14 to be excluded. The organizers refuted the risks. The festival is the remit of the Bathini Goud family. They claim the recipe for the special paste was passed on to one of their ancestors by a saint in 1845 in return for keeping the ingredients secret and offering the treatment for free.
The children’s rights group, Balula Hakkula Sangham, was successful in achieving the prevention of children from receiving the Bathini Fish Cure at this year’s festival claiming it is unscientific and unhygienic. It is also suggesting that the paste be subjected to modern scientific tests. The Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Commission ordered the Hyderabad District Administration to intervene and at this year’s festival (8 and 9 June), for the first time in 166 years, there were restrictions on who could enjoy the treatment.
With the treatment already waning in popularity, only time will tell for how many more years the Bathini Goud family will be able to keep up their ancestor’s promise.
