Better Treatment of Nasal Polyps

Nasal polyps, a condition where fleshy swellings that look like grapes grow in the nose has historically been treated many ways. Hippocrates reported using a snare to remove them.

Other attempts used OTL from BC to 1750s include cauterization, application of goose fat, filling the nose with oils, aluminum sulfate salts, phenol, an ointment that included lead...

Let's say that by the 1110s, the doctors in Scandinavia, Germany, British Isles, and the former Regions of the Western Roman Empire (there are sooo many "little states" t list them all) have finally figured out most of what they were doing didn't work. They stop the cauterization (tired by the Greeks), phenol (I don't know if it was used in 1110s, it certainly was used in the 1700s), lead ointments (texts include it being used in the nose in the 1300s and the ointment is older than that) and all that. They don't realize that the root problem is inflammation (what is inflammation? The Latin texts say nothing about that), but they finally came to the conclusion the only choice was a snare and polyp removal WITHOUT splitting the soft palate (which some overeager surgeons did). Just hold the nose open, apply a numbing agent, and remove the polyps. This doesn't actually address the root cause, but it's the only historical method that almost always did no harm and on top of not being harmful it offered some relief (recurrence is like 90% with this method and 75% of them will happen in 3 years). Let's also say Fallopius's snare and John Van Horn was made by 1110s (both possible with ROMAN level craftsmanship). In OTL, Hippocrates's improvised snare was cumbersome to use in the nose.

What effects would this have? I haven't read of any monarchs, nobles, sons of monarchs, great grand children of monarchs, nieces/nephews of monarchs, military officers, knights, or inventors suffering from the counterproductive treatments, so I imagine this early POD would actually be small.
 
I guess it's hard to think of the implications when, as I mentioned, none of the OTL greats got their sinuses mangled by the counterproductive treatments.
 
It seems that of the total population in Medieval ages, 1/3000 people went to a doctor for nasal polyps. In contrast, modern studies show that 2% of people suffer from this condition.

However, I think it was "no money for doctor" not "treatments are counterproductive" that caused most people to have it untreated (unless the polyp hangs out the nostril). At that time, it was thought the doctors knew what they were doing.

Something a peasant might see the doctor for might be bladder stone, which is debilitating, while nasal polyps almost never cuase pain.
 
Oh I forgot...

These cases are how bad nasal polyps can get if you don't remove them. Now... most cases don't progress beyond the "I can't smell or breathe through my nose" stage, so these are the exceptions.

http://www.jaypeejournals.com/ejour...eJournals/images/JPLOGO.gif&IID=195&isPDF=YES
http://www.srpskiarhiv.rs/dotAsset/30557
http://www.nasoneb.com/pdfs/cs_nasal_polyps.pdf
http://www.entdoctor.co.nz/images/sinus01.png
http://www.jaypeejournals.com/eJour..._eJournals/images/JPLOGO.gif&IID=107&isPDF=NO

Again, none of the OTL greats suffered from sinuses mangled by counterproductive treatments. As for common people, not to many of them got treated for this since they would usually come in for some other problem and the doctor would be like "Oh yeah, and you have polyps in your nose, don't worry some phenol would work"
 
This is a good thread that looks at an unexpected POD.

It's technically within the technological capability of the 800s much less the suggested POD. Problem is that people usually didn't learn what works and what doesn't. For example, most of the time if you had a fever minor infection, bloodletting would be followed by recovery since you would normally recover anyways, but the cut from the scalpel or the leech was useless, but OTL medieval times occasionally people found out what didn't work.
 
Oh I forgot...

These cases are how bad nasal polyps can get if you don't remove them. Now... most cases don't progress beyond the "I can't smell or breathe through my nose" stage, so these are the exceptions.

http://www.jaypeejournals.com/ejour...eJournals/images/JPLOGO.gif&IID=195&isPDF=YES
http://www.srpskiarhiv.rs/dotAsset/30557
http://www.nasoneb.com/pdfs/cs_nasal_polyps.pdf
http://www.entdoctor.co.nz/images/sinus01.png
http://www.jaypeejournals.com/eJour..._eJournals/images/JPLOGO.gif&IID=107&isPDF=NO

Again, none of the OTL greats suffered from sinuses mangled by counterproductive treatments. As for common people, not to many of them got treated for this since they would usually come in for some other problem and the doctor would be like "Oh yeah, and you have polyps in your nose, don't worry some phenol would work"

That's kind of the problem right there. I had nasal polyps removed when I was younger, I thought the whole thing was pointless since I could fairly easily breath through my nose/smell anyway, the post-treatment required me to squeeze water through my nose every night which was a pain, and they apparently came back within a few years anyway but my doctor says it's basically optional to remove them. I think the majority of people who have them notice barely anything other than they breathe through their mouth instead of their nose (and don't know why). Just my personal experience, though. Obviously people who have them as bad as those pictures in your post show would benefit immensely from treatment.
 
Top