Hard to swallow...

There is conventional medicine and there is alternative medicine. And then there are other therapies that can be described as unorthodox at best, and downright crackpot, if one is being less polite.

One of the latest of these to come under the spotlight is - and how appropriate that it should appear in the 'Hard to Swallow' column - a bizarre treatment for asthma which has proved very popular in Hyderabad in India.

So popular, in fact, that fleets of special trains and buses are laid on to transport up to half a million hopeful asthma sufferers to the city from all parts of the country, and even overseas.

Apparently the Goud family has been dispensing the 'cure', free of charge, for almost 50 years, having received the formula from a Hindu saint. The time of the treatment is determined each year by astrologers and usually coincides with the arrival of the monsoon rains.

The so-called therapy requires patients to swallow a live sardine, the wriggling action of which is said to help clear the throat of accumulations of phlegm. The fish is accompanied by a ball of yellowish paste of undisclosed composition, and the patient must then follow a strict 45-day diet restricted to 25 different foods.

The process has to be repeated for at least seven years to effect a total cure. 'If all these instructions are carefully followed we can guarantee a 100% cure for any patient no matter how bad their asthma,' claimed family patriarch Harinath Goud. There have been calls by doctors and scientists for the family to disclose the formula of the paste, but they have consistently refused, on the grounds that it would be exploited by others and would lose its potency if commercialised. 'If they refuse to do so, the government should withdraw its support for the event,' said MV Ranga Redy of the Indian Medical Association.

Call me sceptical, but it all sounds a bit fishy.