Title says it all really.
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Put simply, it’s because often they WERE effective, but they were mistaken about the cause or vector for illnesses.
Take miasma, for instance. This was a belief that bad smells could cause disease. To reduce stench, some medieval cities enacted policies that put bans on tanning too close to domiciles, did not allow slaughtering to be done within city walls, and forced people to dispose of spoiled food. During early instances of the plague, people who were not immediate family or notaries were often forbidden from entering the home of the deceased, and bodies had to be buried immediately in a sealed coffin at a depth of 6 feet.
We know now that the smell of rot isn’t what makes you ill or gives you the plague. But eradicating the source of the stench (which is actually harbouring the germs that make you sick) still had the effect of reducing illness.
But filling your mask with herbs to reduce the smell of a dying or dead person wasn’t as effective because the cause of the illness wasn’t really the smell, but the germs.
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