Five Bizarre Medical & Health Practices
Over the course of time, human beings have developed some wonderful medical advances and answers to some of science’s greatest mysteries. The medical practices that have been discovered and put into place have helped save hundreds of thousands of lives, but what about the theories that have proved unhelpful and downright crazy? Read on for some of the most off-the-wall and bizarre things that doctors and scientists have dreamed up.
Bizarre Medical Practice #1: Urine Therapy
You may be wishing you misread that title, but you haven’t. Urine therapy really did involve pee, and usually your own. This practice has been popular in multiple eras throughout time, including the Renaissance and in different cultures around the world like Rome, China, India and France. Urine supposedly aids in whitening teeth, protecting the skin, getting rid of acne, strep throat (can you imagine gargling with pee instead of a salt rinse?), and healing broken bones. I’m really not sure how that last one is supposed to work. Sometimes doctors have suggested that urine be ingested, and others have thought that a paste put directly onto the skin would help. This is one bizarre medical practice that actually hasn’t been debunked, as some cultures around the world really do believe that drinking your own pee can be good for you.
Bizarre Medical Practice #2: Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup
Just what is in this tasty and soothing sounding concoction for children? Oh, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing we wouldn’t think twice about before giving to our children. The ingredients included morphine, cannabis, heroin, powdered opium and a bunch of other deadly drugs. Marketed to be able to help calm a child down, it would have better been positioned as something to put your baby six feet under! This probably happened to end up doing more than just mellowing a child out, which is why this medicine has fallen by the wayside.
Bizarre Medical Practice #3: Mercury
A few months ago, during one of our beer brewing sessions, my boyfriend and I had a huge scare with our hydrometer (a handy floating tool used to measure the density of beer) smashing into pieces. He thought that the bottom of the hydrometer contained mercury, and panic induced cleanup and internet search ensued. Mercury is now known to be highly toxic, but in ancient times, mercury was seen as an excellent healing tool. It was found in various Egyptian tombs dating back to 1500 BC, and people once thought that it drinking mercury could help in healing wounds and prolonging life. Somewhat similar to Mrs. Winslow’s featured above, this supposedly helpful practice sounds more deadly than anything else.
Bizarre Medical Practice #4: Coughing? Try Heroin
One pharmaceutical giant who will remain nameless in order to protect their now sterling reputation used to recommend heroin for coughs. Heroin, the highly addictive drug that can now only be bought illegally on darkened street corners in shady neighborhoods. At the end of the 19th century, this company was promoting heroin as a cough suppressant, along with being an excellent treatment for someone’s morphine addiction. This was soon recalled after the company discovered that heroin metabolized into morphine in the body, not surprisingly unhelpful for treating a morphine addiction.
Bizarre Medical Practice #5: A Lobotomy
Even if you haven’t ever heard of any of the previous medical practices, you’ve certainly heard of a lobotomy. According to Merriam Webster’s Medical Dictionary, a lobotomy is “surgical severance of nerve fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the thalamus performed especially formerly for the relief of some mental disorders.” Severance, meaning cutting, cutting into the brain. If this makes you shiver in horror, you’re not alone. While brain surgery is one of the most amazing and complex or surgeries that is in practice today, it is nowhere near the primitive slicing and dicing that lobotomies once were. They unfortunately caused more harm than good, and it is rumored that John F. Kennedy’s sister underwent a lobotomy and her intellect was reduced that of an infant.
Thankfully, none of these practices are really things that we need to worry about any more. With the advances in technology and medicine, along with health insurance plans designed to help and offer us the best care possible, we have come a long way from giving highly toxic drugs to children and letting doctors chop our frontal lobe in hopes of curing mental illnesses.
photo credit: angermann; TheTruthAbout…; felixe; heungsub
Tags: bizarre practices, Health History, health insurance, medical treatments, strange drugs
