Surgery is a 20th century innovation that has progressed to the stage where anyone can get relief from diseases and their symptoms by going under the surgeon’s knife. However, before the 20th century treatment was superficial and concentrated on treating the patient based on his symptoms rather than treating the root cause. The sciatic nerve pain relief in those times consisted of practices that are today shown to have similar effects to each other.
Even back then it was shown that any pain associated with the sciatica nerve region could be cured through prescribed bed rest or a combination of analgesics and exercise. However, the problem was that while the former worked on one patient it did not do anything for the other. Similarly, the later did not always result in reduced pain through the body. Today, doctors still advise the same treatment initially and the choice is entirely on the doctor treating the case.