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Liz Cohen receives a snake massage treatment, where snakes are let loose on her body, at a spa in the northern communal village of Talmey El'Aza. Ada Barak, the owner of the spa, uses California and Florida King Snakes, Corn Snakes and Milk Snakes for the treatments and she charges 300 Shekels per massage. Once people get over any initial misgivings, they find physical contact with the creatures to be soothing, says Barak.Reuters 
A colleague assists Indonesian bee-sting therapist Muntoyib, as he covers himself with live honeybees in Jakarta. Although the therapy requires more research, the popularity of the bee-sting therapy is on the rise. The curative powers of bee-sting therapy in treating chronic pain has been revealed by all the greatest societies in history, including, Greece, Egypt and China.Reuters 
A man holds terrapin to the face of a villager in the Kandal province, 20 Km (12 miles) away from Phom Penh. The terrapin touch, despite living in filthy swamps and carrying salmonella, is believed to cure many bodily ailments, including rheumatism. Although its medical benefits are little more than anecdotal, the people of Cambodia will swear by its supernatural healing power.Reuters 
A Thai man drinks a glass of rice wine with a scorpion in Baan Niyomchai village of Lopburi province, about 250 km (155 miles) north of Bangkok. These scorpion wines are natural medicine used to treat many health problems, including back pain, rheumatism, lumbago, among others. These rice-based liquors are also considered to be a strong natural aphrodisiac.Reuters 
An apprentice of the traditional Bosson religion uses her healing powers to cure a young child during the Ahouwe ritual purification dance in Aniassue on the eastern Ivory Coast. Ahouwe is a ritual dance held in Ivory Coast's eastern Akan area and in Ghana, during which followers become possessed by genies, who instruct them on the preparation of natural cures. The women who act as spiritual mediums claim to possess healing powers and are known as Komians.Reuters 
In a traditional Chinese medical treatment for facial paralysis at a hospital in Jinan, capital of the eastern Chinese province, Shandong, a walnut is placed on the patient's eye and ignited dry moxa leaves are placed in her ear.Reuters 
A man covered with mud rests in a medicinal mud pond at the "Lagoon of Miracles" in Chilca. With its distinct greenish colour, containing minerals of chloride of sodium, sulphate, and carbonate of calcium, along with the mud ponds that surround it, the "Lagoon of Miracles" is believed to alleviate everything recommended for everyone suffering from skin aliments, acne, rheumatism, and especially arthritis.Reuters 
Assem al-Tamimi, a Palestinian doctor and a specialist of the traditional Islamic Hijama treatment, tends to a patient at his clinic in the West Bank city of Hebron. Hijama involves creating a vacuum on the patients' skin by placing inverted cups on parts of the body and drawing blood from an incision on the skin.Reuters 
A folk remedy without much of an ancient history is the one resides in Rawa Buaya in Indonesia's Java province. Ever since a man who regularly lied down on railway tracks was reportedly cured of stroke, the residents have taken up lying down on the tracks to cure pretty much anything. They believe that the electrical energy from the tracks have remedial powers.Reuters 
Mohmmed Emad, 41, is buried neck-deep in sand in the El Dakrror mountain area at Siwa Oasis, 700 km northwest of Cairo and 55 km to the Libyan border. The people in Siwa believe that being buried in the sand during the hottest time of the day is a therapeutic treatment which can cure rheumatism, joint pain and sexual impotency.Reuters
When months of treatment refuses to provide any solace to your health problems, remember there is always alternative medicine. While many in the "developed" world may scorn at these unorthodox cure mechanisms, nothing is as crazy as these traditional medicines, if it actually works. Though modern Western medicine may have achieved ubiquitous status with hospitals and easy-to-swallow drugs, alternate remedies from live bee stinging to mud baths still exist.
