User:Rade0400/sandbox

Ticitl
When the illness wasn't serious, the Aztec's priest would often be called upon to take care of the sick. The ticitl had to have great knowledge to treat everyday diseases. Ticitl were also called upon if an illness or injury became serious, such as when a warrior would be wounded in battle. The ticitl were also good at performing surgical procedures by using knives which were made from volcanic glass (obsidian), the Ticitl would use these knives for procedures that involved the removing of tumors and the draining of wounds. Along with these obsidian knives, Ticitl would use different part of plants as tools for their procedures. For example, ticitl would use agave thorns as tools when performing surgeries that involved the eye. Not only did the Ticitl use their skills for medical purposes, their skills were also used for ceremonial purposes, for example, men entering the priesthood would have to be circumcised and the Ticitl were the one who had to perform this procedure due to their surgical skills.

The Ticitl even had a way of classifying different types of wounds and would place them in categories depending on the type of wound. The Ticitl became skilled at treating bone fractures due to them having to heal Aztec warriors that were wounded in battle. They would sew wounds with the help of strong fibers that would come from plants or  they would even use strong hair strands from an animal, the Ticitl also had their own methods of stopping a bleeding wound and of relieving pain with the use of plants and even psychedelic mushrooms.

Diagnosis and Treatment
Some of these treatments were so effective that they are still used in folk medicine, for example, using maguey sap to treatments is still an effective natural treatment because of the antibacterial properties of the maguey sap. Another property that made the use of the sap to be favored and made it an effective treatment is how sticky it is, this property helped the sap absorb moisture and debris from the wound and it would provide a cleansing effect that helped to prevent infection. The Aztec healers also incorporated the use of salt into their treatments because it would help absorb moisture and help decrease inflammation. The Ticitl combined these two ingredients together and it improved the effectiveness of treating wounds even further. The addition of salt would draw up moisture even further and this would help promote a faster healing process and it would keep the wound from drying out which helped to alleviate some of the pain. The reason for why the ticitl gained so much knowledge in healing and treating wounds is because of how often the Aztecs went to war with other tribes. For example, the ticitl would use the maguey sap to helped cover surgical wounds such as when reattaching severed extremities or stitching back a wound that was obtained during battle. They also found different ways of preparing the maguey sap, for example, using the sap of the same plant at different growing stages or boiling the sap was found to be more effective at treating certain injuries