How did ancient people use venoms as medicine. Which issues were they treating and how did venom work to achieve that ?
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Most historic accounts of venom in (not *as*) medicine are a lot like what we continue to do nowadays; using them to generate antivenoms in animals that can then be given to counteract the original venom. Or as someone else mentions, you could carefully take tiny amounts of a toxin to generate that immunity yourself.
Beyond that, toxic substances generally are toxic because they interfere with some physiological process. In particular conditions, repressing some process can be beneficial… but good luck figuring that out *and* finding a toxin that can do that, in a non-toxic dosage, before the age of modern medicine (hint: innovation in medicine used to involve a lot more trial and error).
Nowadays though, drug design/discovery occasionally takes inspiration from natural toxins to create new version that have a useful level of potency, more restricted effects and other desireable properties.
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