10 Odd Medical Practices Of The 20th Century

Drugs all through the ages has granted us a lot to be pleased about. Very not often do any of us get up having to worry smallpox or among the deadliest flu viruses. Syphilis is not a dying sentence, a bacterial an infection assured to devour at us from the within, consuming our brains because it feeds pervasively all through us, bringing us a sluggish, depressing, painful, and agonizing dying. We merely see a physician and take some antibiotics till it goes away just a few weeks later. When we now have critical accidents or want surgical procedures, we are able to fairly safely relaxation assured that no an infection will kill us after seeping into our blood.

Alongside the course of historical past, there was no scarcity of unusual, weird, and macabre medical practices to horrify us to today. Historic Romans thought it to be medically useful to drink the blood of gladiators, and some centuries again, tobacco smoke enemas have been all the trend. However even the 1900s gave us no scarcity of issues we are able to hardly imagine have been thought-about medication. Our barbaric methods of supposed therapeutic aren’t all far again in historical historical past; a few of them have been practiced by utterly sane people even in trendy occasions. From frontal lobotomies to ingesting radium, right here’s a listing of ten of essentially the most weird medical practices employed through the 20th century. A few of them are nonetheless going within the 21st century.

10 Lobotomies

In all probability essentially the most well-known unusual medical observe of the previous 100 years is the frontal lobotomy. Whereas many realize it merely as a fairly actually mind-numbing observe that didn’t serve a lot within the methods of truly therapeutic sufferers, the lobotomy has an extended, wealthy historical past and was extraordinarily in style in its heyday within the 1900s. Really, relying on perspective, lobotomies have been significantly efficient in comparison with different choices, albeit ethically questionable. To these insane with delusional paranoia who always understand themselves as struggling, a near-coma state of sedation may be a worthwhile trade-off. Seizures and extreme persona modifications, nevertheless, have been solely two of the numerous unwanted side effects which ended up being some fairly disturbing drawbacks to the observe. By and enormous, many who obtained a lobotomy ended up spending the remainder of their (typically shortened) lives in a vegetative, torpid state; some sufferers would barely transfer or by no means communicate once more.

What originated as a fancy process of reducing a gap into the cranium and delivering ethanol into the mind ended up changing into a little bit of a circus sideshow by the point the ice choose lobotomy got here round. One notorious lobotomist, Walter Freeman (pictured above), ended up performing between 2,500 and 5,000 lobotomies single-handedly; he even did 25 of them in a single afternoon, lining up a row of hospital beds crammed with sufferers and, in entrance of cameras and an viewers, went down the road and lobotomized everybody within the room.^[1] Whereas its results are excessive, and full psychological dullness is an indeniable results of the lobotomy, at this time, we arguably use many drugs for a similar consequence. The true query at hand for the weird observe is whether or not a fully blunted psychological state is taken into account preferable to a state of complete psychosis.

9 Primal Remedy

The idea sounds straight out of a surrealist artwork portray. Primal remedy is the observe the place a affected person, within the firm of their psychiatric care doctor, reenact, relive, or in any other case try and “reexperience” a traumatic or life-changing occasion once more by means of reminiscence and vent about it in a “regular” or constructive method. And by “regular,” we imply by screaming their heads off, as loudly, angrily, furiously, and emphatically as they will presumably muster, therefore the therapy’s alternate identify of “primal scream remedy.” The idea is to expertise and specific uncooked feelings, with out the advanced and windy want for phrases. Simply scream as an alternative.^[2]

Primal remedy typically rejects the orthodoxy of conventional psychotherapy, feeling that we have to faucet into the core of our uncooked feelings. It’s someplace in between remedy and artwork. Practitioners of scream remedy have their sufferers not solely scream at high of their lungs however typically hit punching luggage or roll round on the ground in an try and let loose pent-up, uncooked, pure, unadulterated feelings. This was popularized within the creative days of the 1960s and 1970s, although it has largely misplaced traction as a official remedy.

8 Smash Remedy

For me, the Offspring’s 1994 hit file Smash is remedy in and of itself, however for the remainder of the world, smash remedy has nothing to do with mid-1990s punk rock; it has to do with actually breaking issues. Associated to primal remedy, smash remedy is what would occur for those who took primal remedy, blended in some pent-up rage, after which put the pissed off particular person in entrance of a bunch of objects and easily instructed them, “Break all the pieces.”

Smash remedy institutions function outdoors of the standard medical system and literature, however they’re popping up everywhere in the United States and elsewhere. Web site Smashtherapy.ca has the next to say about its providers supplied: “Some individuals simply need to watch the world burn. Whereas we are able to’t burn something right here (but), we provide the subsequent neatest thing: smashing stuff into tiny little items.”

Smash remedy institutions, typically known as “anger rooms” or “rage rooms” are all the trend today, however it’s uncertain they’ve any actual, lasting therapeutic worth outdoors of some novelty and a superb time that would simply be discovered elsewhere.^[3]

7 Vin Mariani

Vin Mariani was a tonic wine, principally a French purple Bordeaux with a twist: It was blended with cocaine. It was prescribed for males who have been overworked, so it was principally the unique gangster of vitality drinks. Invented and debuted in 1863, it continued into the 1900s as a type of nervous system stimulant, however it had a very excessive dose of cocaine.

The thought was to drink two or three glasses all through the day to take care of a wholesome nervous system.^[4] This truly sounds scrumptious, and it little doubt should have labored for its meant objective. Although with the robust unwanted side effects of drug habit and alcoholism, it could actually hardly be referred to as medication.

6 Methamphetamine

What most individuals don’t notice is that methamphetamine continues to be listed as a prescription drug in america, and it may be prescribed and bought even in capsule type at this time, proper now.^[5] Dexosyn is precise, official meth. In america, meth is listed as a Schedule II drug, which means it has official medical makes use of, however there’s a excessive potential for abuse. Crystal meth is twice as potent because the run-of-the-mill amphetamine previously accessible up till the 1960s in lots of locations. The 1980s noticed the delivery and explosion of this extraordinarily potent type of methamphetamine.

Whereas it might astonish you that methamphetamine will be prescribed, it needs to be famous that there many critical ailments and issues on the market which such a robust stimulant could also be essential to deal with, and that judgement name is as much as a affected person and their physician. On the similar time, in a world the place many locations take into account marijuana a dangerous drug with no medicinal worth, this truth undoubtedly matches as fairly odd.

5 Electrical Belts

In hospitals and sanitariums all through the early to mid-1900s, electrical shock remedy was one of many dominant concepts of the day. The thought is to strive stimulating the nervous system and mind when drugs fail. Electroconvulsive remedy (ECT) continues to be truly used at this time in numerous, albeit a lot lighter, types than it was within the heyday of electroshock. However whereas ECT and all of its issues, corresponding to the harmful and uncontrollable nature of electrical energy and surprising somebody, is odd in and of itself, it’s not the entire story of electrocution as medication.

The weirdest it obtained was most likely the electrical belt, which is de facto only a good, quaint time period for a wire that was wrapped round an impotent individual’s manhood. The penis could be hit with electrical shocks in an effort to treatment erectile dysfunction. The thought was to invigorate the wiener and shock it again to life!^[6]

4 Arsenic

Sure, you learn that proper. The subsequent bizarre, loopy, odd medication on the checklist is none apart from arsenic. Arsenic is a pure component with an atomic weight of 33. Although individuals knew it was a extremely poisonous poison, by means of a superb chunk of the 1900s, individuals used it in an try and treatment a gazillion completely different circumstances, most notably syphilis. Together with mercury, arsenic was, for a very long time, considered probably the greatest defenses in opposition to syphilis, although each substances may kill the sufferers they have been meant to deal with, sadly. It wouldn’t be till the 1940s that penicillin could be launched, and arsenic would fall out of trend. Nevertheless, it was nonetheless really useful to deal with dermatological issues up till the 1960s.^[7]

In an fascinating flip of occasions, whereas arsenic didn’t truly work properly for any of the issues it was meant to deal with, it’s truly now discovering a brand new resurgence in recognition as a doable most cancers therapy. It’s exhibiting a little bit of promise as an agent, to not deal with circumstances of the pores and skin by dousing your self in poison however of focused most cancers therapy.

3 Radioactive Juice

Radithor was the commerce identify. Actually, it was simply the brand-name promoting of radioactive quackery within the type of radioactive water or juice. The early 1900s was an period of quackery of all kinds, from electrocution to guarantees that radioactive all the pieces may remedy any and all issues in your life. A Harvard dropout named William Bailey was one of many first to actually bounce on this explicit practice of quackery. Not solely did Bailey assume that most cancers may very well be cured by doses of radiation, however he additionally prescribed radioactive doses for diseases like anemia and despair.^[8]

Couple this with the idea that radium was what introduced in regards to the healing properties of spring water, and it was on like Donkey Kong. Everybody believed that liquids with small doses of radium in them had healing properties. Individuals have been even shopping for units to verify their radium was extra freshly put into their water, as radium decays in a short time in water.

A person named Eben Byers took this logic to its excessive, taking large doses of Radithor. By the 1930s, his bones, significantly his jaw, had nearly utterly decayed. Byers had abscesses in his mind and holes in his cranium and ultimately died on March 31, 1932. He was buried in a lead-lined coffin.

2 Mercury

The early 1900s was a time for profit-motivated experimentation, as has been evidenced by so many gadgets on this checklist, and the subsequent instance isn’t any completely different. Whether or not individuals have been simply after a buck or truly, genuinely believed they have been serving to different individuals is usually up for debate, however one factor is for certain: Some odd and clearly harmful stuff was tried.

Mercury is among the most toxic substances identified to man and utterly messes up anybody who comes into contact with it. Mercury could cause illness, nausea, vomiting, metallic style, seizures, dying, coughing, listening to loss, and a slew of different horrible issues. However nonetheless, someway, individuals discovered a option to take into account it a match therapy for a variety of diseases and illnesses, from scraped knees to pores and skin illness, through the 20th century.

However most of all, mercury was used as a treatment for none apart from syphilis. Mercury is in completely no method efficient in opposition to syphilis, until, in fact, it kills the individual with syphilis earlier than they will unfold the illness. That’s about it. Tragically, mercury made lots of people sick and killed many others in its lengthy tenure as historical past’s most toxic medication.^[9]

1 Urine Remedy

The number-one odd medical observe of the 1900s truly nonetheless has a light following and is sadly having fun with a little bit of resurgence at this time, and it’s referred to as urine remedy. One particular web site about urine remedy says the next:

For nearly the complete course of the 20th century, unknown to the general public, medical doctors and medical researchers have been proving in each laboratory and medical testing that our personal urine is a gigantic supply of important vitamins, nutritional vitamins, hormones, enzymes and important antibodies that can not be duplicated or derived from every other supply. They use urine for therapeutic most cancers, coronary heart illness, allergic reactions, auto-immune ailments, diabetes, bronchial asthma, infertility, infections, wounds and on and on—but we’re taught that urine is a poisonous waste product. This discrepancy between the medical fact and the general public data concerning urine is ludicrous and, because the information releases you’ve simply learn display, can imply the distinction between life and dying to you and to your family members.

Now, in fact, we don’t imagine any of this. There isn’t a large conspiracy in opposition to you to cover the reality of urine remedy in an effort to coax you out of your cash; you’re fantastic. However urine remedy had a number of backing all through the 1900s and has fallen out and in of trend just a few occasions.

Urine remedy is principally the place somebody both applies their very own urine to their pores and skin or consumes it in an try and treatment all kinds of illnesses, and it has completely zero scientific backing.^[10]

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