Your comments have been neither informed nor in depth in the subject at hand.

My intent was to offer some information where your top posters in this sub-reddit seem only to desire to criticize the person asking the question. I feel like a somewhat academic reddit could do better.

I'm a little surprised that, as a declared physician, you would not have had any curiosity about medical practices either outside of the history of western medicine. ... Your smarmy "But listen if you're curious about something" is both shockingly ignorant and ironic given your lack of desire [to learn anything about your profession].

I'm going to skip the insults for now. Not sure why the tone was necessary.

You're repeatedly bringing up western practices like the study of anatomy

Anatomy is important for practices such as the bone-setting we've been talking about. In fact, one of the most common fractures is a result of falling on an outstretched hand. This is called a distal radius fracture. This very common fracture can be debilitating (loss of grip strength) for your grip if the fracture fragment is not angulated volarly (toward the palm) when reduced. Human's tend to splint fractures against their body naturally. What I'm trying to say in all of this is that a physician which knowledge predating our current understanding of anatomy is unlikely to be more proficient to anyone else in the village/city. Therefore, I don't think treatment of most fractures is something that would suffered without a designated physician.

there are other treatments for cutaneous bacterial infections that were used, just like there have been in most of the world for millennia.

I would love to see evidence for effectiveness. Especially given that even modern topical antibiotics have very limited number of conditions under which they are effective (acne, impetigo). Also, you're saying treatment and not prophylaxis which is another discussion.

They weren't focused on treating the humours and avoiding bathing in Botswana circa 1300 CE.

Honestly, I did not want to comment anything on any particular area or population because I do, in fact, recognize my Western bias. I realize I failed this when I commented on sub-Sarahan africa. I did state present day sub-Sarahan africa and not african during the asked time period for this reason. However, these are the same set of illness categories that were the most common causes of death for the ancient greeks and romans--although I would suspect less asthma.

I do understand this is in my response to saying the treatments were more harm than good. However, this is from a perspective of seeing how we continue to fail even in this day and age in giving treatments that are more harmful than helpful even thought it seems like they should be logical. This is not commentary on the inferiority of African or Chinese medicine, this is commentary on the advancement of our scientific understanding of the world.

Some of the things you're talking about in regards to public health in Africa though have stemmed specifically from colonialism. It's not unusual for a population to be "interrupted," traditions and knowledge lost, environments and ecosystems changed drastically etc as they were colonized.

I totally agree with what you're saying but I didn't really say anything about public health in Africa. This is because of all the things in our society that saves lives today, it is not medicine. It's sanitation. The OP did not ask about sanitation or public infrastructure necessary to maintain it, so I did not include that in my replies.

I usually provide sources in this sub, but since this is seriously just a quick google search away, and if you're a physician you should have better and more in depth journals than I do available, you should probably use your "better spent" time to read up on the subject.

You know, you've very much right that I probably should know more about the historic practice of medicine. But, I assure you, I spend a sizable amount of time reading journals--with the hope that I can save someone's life tomorrow. I'm a physician. Not a medical anthropologist. But if someone like yourself could care to offer something to the OP and myself, that would be excellent.

They aren't arguing with you, they are trying to inform you, because from everything you've said here it's plain that you have zero knowledge on this subject.

I disagree that the poster was attempting to inform.

While antibiotics have had a significant impact on mortality rates, bacterial infections are not the only cause of death illness or disability.

This really is totally aside from the point I was trying to make as stated earlier. I really should have said 'antibiotic era.' I, in no way, meant to imply that infectious disease is the only kind of disease. However, it has been a major, if not the major, cause of mortality in many societies. Further, it's important to realize that infectious diseases and surgical diseases comprise the vast majority of illnesses that can actually be cured and not just treated.

Prior to 20th century medicine, there did exist plenty of treatments for a variety of conditions that varied (and still do) from place to place in the world.

I have practiced in the US, Vietnam, and Guatemala. So, although I do not to all variations of the practice of medicine, I am familiar with a few different practices.