Seriously, I cant imagine anyone living long if they have complications from this (i.e. ulcers, etc) back then. What a terribly painful way to die. What did physicians in the middle ages do? Did they use herbs? Or did they also have some surgical remedy for fissures with sentinels?
Other than maybe a stomach ulcer or cancer, I can't imagine a worse, disabling condition to have.

I don't think cave-people had a long life expectancy anyways!
I read that in platos day they used to cut out hemorrhoids and stick a tuft of lambs wool covered in honey and herbs up the butt til it was healed.
the horror!!!
I read that anal dilation goes way way back as a cure for fissures.
I bet physicians in the dark ages would have just bled you and stuck leaches on your bum! :roll:
Thank goodness we live in the here and now... but of course 20 years from now might be even better..
It does all seem pretty inhumane.
I wish it were like startrek and they could just release some medical nannites to go in and fix the damage.
-Tanya

exactly, Dr. Crusher could just tweak some Borg tech and have them go in there and clean house :)

naw... Crusher would use a dermal regenerator, a little whirring and light and the AF would be gone!

Dr. McCoy would be horrified at the idea that we cut anything down there. I loved that scene in the movie, Star Trek 4, where he passes by that elderly lady on a gurney and asks her what she's in the hospital for. When she tells him kidney dialysis, he is horrified by how barbaric a treatment that was, slips her a little pill to take, and she is cured... I want one of those little pills!
I don't know how long tapered candles have been around, but fissures used to be treated by dilating the anus with a tapered candle.

or what if they could just use the transporter to remove the poop straight from your colon?
So you don't have BMs while you are healing?
:D
-Tanya

or build a bionic sphincter for those of us born with fragile ones...

Hahaha, this is seriously the best thread ever :)!
Sadly enough during the past 1.5 years I was thinking so often of Dr Crusher and if I lived in the future how she would just use the dermal re-generator and I would be out playing holosuit tennis in an hour :)!
But seriously can't we just come up with synthetic skin or something for fissures?? I think a major part of the problem is nobody understands how severe our pain is, so nobody is really working feverishness to find a better solution!

What a great thread! I'm picturing Arthur, coming to Merlin in severe agony. Or, WWTD (What Would Tutankhamun Do)? How about Gen. U. S. Grant or Robert E. Lee?
Then, of course there is the question about what does a Wookie do for an AF? Douglas Adams never mentioned fissures in his Hitchiker's trilogy. Does the sad little robot have a fix?
Hmm, speaking of this in a more serious tone, do any of our relatives in the primate family suffer from this ailment? Now maybe we can understand why Orangutans tend to be so vicious towards one another (watch the National Geographic special on stress). Maybe this is the real reason. The Alpha Males are suffering from fissures!

was just watching a video on Dr. Sohn, and he said LIS has been around for over a hundred years! Would hate to have been getting that done back then though!!!
-Tanya