Folk practices and early management
How people managed loose joints before modern evidence existed. These records describe history; they are not recommendations.
Before modern physiotherapy, management of joint instability centered on rest and immobilization: bandaging, splinting, and restricting activity. Clinical consensus has since moved the other way, toward active strengthening.
The “elastic” performers of travelling shows trained and protected their flexibility as a working skill. The sources describe how they lived with hypermobility, not a treatment for it.
Historical management of connective-tissue fragility included dietary measures and general constitutional tonics, the usual response to a poorly understood systemic condition before specific therapies existed. None has a validated mechanism in EDS.