Inspired by this series and finding the antiquated medical methods portrayed absolutely fascinating, I decided to do a little research on the strangest medical practices from history. These are some freaky practices, but I'm certain in a hundred years, people will look back at this time period and wonder about our barbaric medical practices.
Children's Soothing Syrup
In the 19th century, people were simply too busy making soap, waxing their moustaches, or changing in and out of 15 layers of undergarments every time they needed to pee to deal with disobedient children. To assist the overly stressed Victorian era mother, a series of "soothing syrups," lozenges and powders were created, all which were carefully formulated to ensure they were safe for use by those most vulnerable members of the family. Oh, no, wait. Actually, they pumped each bottle full of as many narcotics as it could hold.
For instance, each ounce of
Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup contained 65 mg of pure morphine. Gee, that seems a bit excessive. Finally in 1910, the New York Times decided the whole narcotic-babysitter concept was probably bad in the long run, and ran an article pointing out that these soothing syrups contained, "
...morphin sulphate, chloroform, morphine hydrochloride, codeine, heroin, powdered opium, cannabis indica," and sometimes several of them in combination.
You can't say the soothing syrups weren't effective, as long as you didn't mind your toddler being strung out or, you know, dead. That's right, the terrible 2s weren't just a cutesy euphemism back then. Kids were not only at their brattiest but also often died, in many cases after their parents tried to cure the aforementioned brattiness with narcotic concoctions that would numb a grizzly bear.
Curing With Mercury
Mercury is pretty neat stuff. The shiny silvery liquid has fascinated humans for thousands of years (there's evidence people used it as early as 1500 BC) and will undoubtedly continue to fascinate far into the future until shape-shifting T-1000 terminators overtake the planet. How could something so awesome not be good for you?
That was the thinking for centuries, when Mercury was used to treat pretty much anything and everything. Scraped your knee? Just rub a little mercury on it. Having some problems with regularity? Forget fiber, time to get some mercury up in there! If you lived more than a 100 years ago, you simply weren't considered healthy if you weren't leaking silver from at least one orifice.
Mercury, as we now know, is toxic as hell. Symptoms of mercury poisoning include chest pains, heart and lung problems, coughing, tremors, violent muscle spasms, psychotic reactions, delirium, hallucinations, suicidal tendencies, restless spleen syndrome, testicular twisting, and anal implosion. OK, I made up the last few, but they barely looked out of place on that horror show list of symptoms, right?
It's a testament to just how cool a substance Mercury is that people kept trying to cure shit with it for 1,000 years after everybody who ingested it dropped dead. There was a silver lining, though, as it helped to fight the spread of STDs. Mercury was used as a cure for syphilis and to its credit, the "cure" usually resulted in one less syphilitic person in the world. It's generally believed Mozart was poisoned by mercury-based syphilis cures, which contradicts the film
Amadeus in which he was killed by somehow writing too much music.
Heroin-based Cough Suppressant
In the late 19th century, people apparently took cough suppression seriously. I'm talking "I'm-going-to-take-me-some-heroin-to-calm-this-cough" level serious. Victorians were sticklers for social etiquette and wheezing your head off was probably considered frightfully rude, but I can't imagine that tying off and shooting some horse in the middle of a dinner party would go over terribly well, either.
Well you probably don't need me to tell you how addictive and destructive a drug heroin really is, but just in case ... Heroin? Might want to avoid that stuff. On the upside, it actually does suppress coughs, so if you do decide to become a junkie at least you'll save on buying Ricola.
Heroin, by the way, was originally developed by
Bayer. You know, those friendly folks behind harmless old aspirin.
Oh, and I should also mention that Bayer used to be called IG Farben, a pharmaceutical and chemical conglomerate that allegedly sponsored experiments by Nazi torturers. How is this not at the center of every single Tylenol ad campaign? "The fast acting pain reliever that has never sponsored Nazi torture camps."
Electrical Impotence Cures
Men have been desperately searching for solutions to their malfunctioning members since Grok, the caveman clubbed a cavewoman, dragged her to his cave -- only to drag her back out again a half hour later with an embarrassed look on his face, and muttering excuses about how tired he is. In the late 19th century, the wonders of electricity became to be known to the common person. Surely this marvelous new technology could be used to heat things up in the boudoir, right?
Electrified beds, elaborate cock shocking electric belts, and other strange devices were advertised as being able to return "male power" and prowess by making your penis rise to electrified attention like Frankenstein's monster's member.
What's fascinating is that you can find ads for more than one brand of electric penis-shock belt. That seems to indicate that the penis-shock belt industry somehow survived the negative word of mouth from the first penis-shock belt user. By "word of mouth," I mean the incoherent screams of the first customer, which could presumably be heard in the next town.
Trepanation
Trepanation is a fancy word for drilling holes in your head. This is actually the oldest surgical procedure known to man as humans have been intentionally knocking holes in their skulls dating back to the time of Grok, the cavemen.
Historically trepanation was most commonly used as treatment for seizures and migraines. Surprise, surprise. Having a gaping hole drilled in your skull (usually without anesthesia) did very little to help people's headaches or brain issues. Trepanation was also used as an extreme form of cosmetic/experimental body modification amongst several societies such as the Incans and Mayans. These societies also got largely wiped out, then a few hundred years later suffered the indignity of having an insulting
Mel Gibson movie made about them, so it didn't really work out that well.
Oh, and yes, a few brilliant individuals still practice trepanation to this day. To give you an idea of the oh-so-solid ground today's trepanation supporters' beliefs are built on, the biggest modern proponent of trepanation is a "Doctor"
Bart Hughes. I put doctor in quotations marks because he never actually finished medical school. That's right, kids, you, too, can be a college dropout and yet still go onto a career convincing people around the world to do incredibly idiotic things. Continue to reach for those stars.
Curing Female "Hysteria"
How many jokes have been made about women and their mood swings? Now, I will admit that most women have the occasional bit of moodiness, especially at that special time of the month. But according to 19th century doctors, it's a symptom of a deadly serious medical condition (along with other symptoms such as nervousness, irritability and the dreaded "tendency to cause trouble"). That's right, ladies, you may be a victim of
female hysteria and not even know it.
So, how exactly do you cure a so-called "condition" that coincidentally was diagnosed almost entirely to those women who dared disobey their Victorian husbands? Glad you asked. The prescription for female hysteria was usually a good spot of doctor administered vaginal massage until the woman achieved "hysterical paroxysm."
Yes that's right, the cure for female hysteria was a doctor's hand down your bloomers until you weren't only thinking of England but screaming its name. Is it any wonder the list of symptoms for female hysteria was so long? Literally any ailment could fit the diagnosis. In those sexually repressed times visiting the doctor's office must have been like a trip to Disney World for most women.
Doctors of the day, on the other hand, were apparently, I don't know, gay or something since they actually objected to women's frequent desire to be "cured" by their magic fingers. Their solution to alleviate hand strain? They invented the vibrator, and thus this post comes to a happy ending.
Other notable medical practices:
lobotomies,
bloodletting,
urine therapy, and
tobacco smoke enemas.
