Hemorrhoid Treatments
Hemorrhoids can be a relatively minor nuisance, little more than an embarrassment, or a serious problem requiring surgery to correct. They can be internal or external, improve on their own or require intervention, and have been a problem for humans since at least the year 1700 BCE. There is an industry built around the over the counter medicines, suppositories, creams, cushions, appliques, and other methods of contending with the discomfort they cause. The efficacy of nearly all of them is questionable based on scientific evidence, other than as a temporary relief from itching.
There is evidence that hemorrhoids may have at least once been the result of God’s wrath. The First Book of Samuel (KJV) describes a plague of emorods suffered by the Philistines after they seized the Ark of the Covenant. The emorods struck the sufferers in their “secret parts” and was not alleviated until the Ark was returned. The emorods proved fatal for some of the Philistines. Emorods is an archaic word used as the English term for hemorrhoids as recently as the nineteenth century.
Another religious connection is through St Fiacre, who is the patron saint of those suffering from them and whose name is connected to a rock upon which he sat to cure his own hemorrhoids, caused by overworking in the fields. The rock eased his complaint, and in medaeval Europe several rocks of suitable shape and size were said to be the one with the miraculous healing power.
An alternative treatment came at the hands of a physician. Believing the hemorrhoids to be caused by being engorged with blood, a doctor would heat iron rods to a temperature sufficient to cauterize the hemorrhoids, after which the rod would be inserted into the rectum and placed against the hemorrhoid if it was internal. External hemorrhoid sufferers were spared at least the pain of the insertion. The procedure would have done nothing other than that which is done by most of the over the counter treatments available today, that is, amuse the patient while waiting for nature to take its course.
Hippocrates described both a procedure for surgically removing hemorrhoids and a preventative to be taken after the surgery was complete. He recommended Hellebore, a plant which is highly poisonous and which he frequently recommended as a purgative, which in the case of hemorrhoids he likely intended to be used as a combination of laxative and stool softener. The surgery he described is not unlike one of the techniques used today, that of a ligature tying off the swollen tissue, which then dies and drops off harmlessly.