SOMETIMES the treatment is worse than the disease - as unfortunately allegedly experienced by a man hoping to cure his son using a Traditional Chinese Medicine remedy involving so-called snake wine.
Chinese state media reported that the fellow from China's Heilongjiang province bought three containers of the elixir, an alcoholic beverage which has a snake inside the bottle, hoping it could help the chronic ailment.
Rather than using them straight away, he left the bottles marinating for a year to boost their "medicinal properties".
Despite that, when he opened them he was shocked to find the snakes inside had been simply hibernating and weren't actually dead - with the report claiming all three came back to life, with one giving him a venomous bite which he survived after being rushed to hospital.
However experts have argued the story could not possibly be true, with a snake's survival after a year of immersion in liquid "biologically impossible".
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 25 Mar 22
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