Do They also Prescribe Drilling a Hole in Your Head to Release the Evil Spirits?

I guess this sort of quackery is fairly commonplace:

A 36-year old Kissimmee woman who mentioned to her doctor during a routine checkup that she is a lesbian has filed complaints with the Florida Department of Health and CIGNA Healthcare against him and his assistant for advocating she change her sexual orientation.

[...]

The complaints, filed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights on behalf of [Jamie] Beiler, allege that during the March 2005 visit, Dr. Hartman and his medical assistant Dawn Pope-Wright falsely presented their personal beliefs as medical information and provided her with unwanted treatment that has been rejected as ineffective by all major health and mental health organizations.

Said Dr. Hartman in response to the complaints, "I suppose you'd take away my magnets and phrenology maps, too, if they weren't aprooooooved by the elitists at the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Association of Social Workers and found to actually be harmful like reparative therapy has been. What? What do you mean they're -- Dawn! Hide the leeches!"

***

A little side note on trepanation. While doing some browsing for information on the practice, I found the diary (warning: graphic pictures) of a gentleman who decided to partake in a home-trepanation procedure in order to derive anticipated mind-expanding benefits. Here's an entry from some undisclosed amount of time after the procedure:

When I take in much caffeine or THC, I feel flashes of heat from within my head. They happen in different parts of my head each time, always on top, but never by the hole itself. The first time it happened, when I was in a car with a friend, pulling a big bong hit, I started to feel the heat in my head and I heard a squirt sound inside my head. At first, I silently panicked (what's the past tense of panic?). I thought to myself, "Am I having a hemorrhage in the brain or something? Is the sensation about to get more intense in general? Am I OK?", but then it passed and I was fine. I still feel the heat in the head sensations now, very regularly, and sometimes now even when not smoking pot or drinking coffee.

And, actually, the procedure can be gauged a success when you compare that to the pre-op entry in the diary: "Me want hole in head. So me can get fuck better. What is past tense of fuck?"


Oh! And yes, I know that leeches actually have modern medical uses. But they will forever be an icon of weird, outmoded ways of illogically "curing" people. And their use as a comedic gag cannot be denied. ;-)