Bedbugs As Medicine?

History is full of bizarre medical practices that we all laugh at today. Bloodletting, for example, is considered downright harmful, with no medical benefits at all. However, you may not be aware that physicians dating back to the Egyptian era touted bedbugs as medical cure alls.

Bedbugs were valued for their medicinal properties by the Romans as well. De Materia Medica is one example of an ancient roman medical text. This particular text prescribed bedbug stew for fevers. For eye infections crushed bed bugs were essential, as well as salt and breast milk. This book went on to describe medical practices that have since become standard practice. The book serves as a precursor to modern medicine, and it describes how to crush bedbugs properly.

Today bedbugs are only rarely used for medicinal purposes. Certain alternative medicine fringe groups adopt the practice, but modern science has since taken a different and more rational position on the matter.

Would you eat bedbugs if there were scientific evidence that it would help cure an ailment?