Live fish and secret herbal goo to cure asthma

Sardineeeee

This fellow was one of 70,000 individuals in Hyderabad, India on Friday who swallowed a live sardine with a secret herbal paste in its mouth, a treatment that they believed would cure their asthma. I hope it worked! "Indian believers swallow live fish as asthma cure" (AP)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Hmm I believe it’s Hyderabad, not Hyberabad…
- David Pescovitz
  
  fixed typo, thanks
- EH
  
  “Hyperbad” is the name of the sequel to “Superbad.”
blueelm

If it actually worked I would totally do this. Too bad.
Snig

Very reminiscent of the maxim “If you swallow a live frog first thing every morning, nothing worse is likely to happen to you the rest of the day.” The avoiding fried foods is probably not a bad thing though.
Anil Vemulapalli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathini_Goud_Brothers
Snig

This will likely be endorsed next week by Dr. Oz.
- EH
  
  I hear there is “some controversy” about the story, we’d better examine it.
chenille

I assume the cure wouldn’t work if you swallowed a freshly killed sardine, because that would be less unpleasant and more humane, so obviously doesn’t have the same medicinal value.
- Snig
  
  They describe that it’s largely the mechanical effect of the wriggling and wiggling and tiggling inside yer that is responsible for the anti asthma health benefit. It is not apparent how it impacts the lungs from the digestive canal, unless the fish is directly inhaled, or if it’s writhings are robust enough to knock the phlegm loose from the stomach. Or maybe swallowing a wriggling fish inspires the recipient to a heroic coughing fit that clears what’e'er ails you.
  - cdh1971
    
    Kinda like gerbiling I guess.
Ipo

Works every time.
Guaranteed to cure the fish of asthma.

(Sardines are small saltwater fish related to herring, these fishies are the fry of some snakehead fish. Freshwater.)
Marya

If there were hook worm inside the goo, inside the fish, it might actually have worked.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Vincent-Maldia/100001023048460 Vincent Maldia

i’d love to try to design the placebo arm of the experiment. Hmm, maybe another species of fish or different herbs. definitely i’ll blindfold the patients. Maybe blenderize the entire thing and give via nasogastric tube