ProverbWisdomEnglish origin16th c.

Desperate cuts must have desperate cures.

Meaning: Severe problems require bold, unconventional solutions, even if risky or painful.

Origin: A version of "desperate diseases require desperate remedies," recorded from the mid-16th century. Hippocrates had advised that extreme diseases need extreme treatment, and Shakespeare's King Claudius says in Hamlet that "diseases desperate grown / By desperate appliance are relieved, / Or not at all."

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