everyone would agree that medicine has come a long way throughout history nowadays no matter your ailment you can go to a pharmacy and find a magic pill that will take all your troubles away headache no problem excessive gas we've got you erectile dysfunction me too brother but things took a while to get to this point back in the day in many ancient civilizations and even in the early days of the US discovering medicines was a matter of trial and error and there was a lot of error I mean a lot of error here are eight
bizarre and downright terrifying cures to diseases that will make you think twice before you complain about that nasty cough syrup number one chloroform the handy dandy knockout juice beloved by serial killers and stalkers alike was originally used as an anesthetic for surgical procedures it gained massive popularity in the US after it was administered to Queen Victoria to reduce her pain during child birth and hey if I had to push out nine Royal babies I'd probably reach for the rag too chloroform was later used on on soldiers in the Civil War and other conflicts around the
globe however a spike in sudden unexplained deaths during surgeries led to controversy surrounding the drugs use and chloroform's popularity as an anesthetic died down aside from just putting patients to sleep chloroform was also used for a variety of medicinal purposes it was used to treat asthma chalora and even gonorrhea it was used as a sweener for other medicines as Mary Poppins always says a spoonful of chloroform helps the medicine go down number two human remains yeah you read that right a few hundred years ago primarily in Europe the practice of consuming human remains as medicine
was really not that uncommon as one historian Richard sug said in Smith Sony magazine the question was not should you eat human flesh but what sort of Flesh should you eat decisions decisions from a powder made from crushed up skulls to pieces of mummified bodies to Freshly gathered blood people Aid other people in order to cure various ailments this stems primarily from a belief that remains of a certain body part would cure sicknesses of the same body part like people ingested skull powder to cure headaches drink blood to eliminate blood diseases and so on and
so on in some instances Village People would go to executions and then pay for a small cup of fresh blood from the executed body like some messed up County Fair perhaps the most horrifying example of this cannibalistic approach to Medicine was in the 1600s when a German physician suggested that a jerky made from the remains of redheaded corpses would treat a variety of helmets gingers have truly had the world against them since day one slim jim anyone number three urine from one body fluid to the next urine was used in ancient civilizations to treat a
variety of diseases such as asthma arthritis allergies indigestion migraines and even cancer people would usually drink their urine but could also massage it into their skin or gums to get the desired effect ancient Roman dentists are even known to have used it to W and teeth which to me just sounds like they enjoyed pranking their patience in the early 20th century a British naturopath popularized the practice of drinking your own urine or urasa he called it urine therapy basing his evidence on personal experience with ingesting his own urine at one point he claimed that in
a bout of ill health he treated himself with a 45-day fast that consisted only of urine and tap water out with the old and in with the old he wrote books on the subject and prescribed urine therapy to thousands of patients uasa and urine therapy has been most popular in India and unlike the previous entries on this list is actually still practiced today despite numerous studies advising against it and outlining the various health risks associated with it personally I'll stick to Advil number four malaria yeah that malaria in 1927 Austrian dror Julius Vagner yarik witnessed
a psychosis patient returned to sanity after recovering from a high fever that was caused by a bacterial infection this was apparently Wagner yar's Eureka moment he hypothesized that fevers could be a cure for psychosis specifically psychosis as a result of advanced syphilis after what I can only imagine were some pretty persuasive explanations he began administering malaria to patients with syphilis in order to induce a fever the malaria would cause a patient's fever to reach such a high level that syphilis couldn't survive in the body the syphilis would die and then the patient would be treated
for the malaria itself usually with quinine now voger yaig was not entirely wrong as he did have a success rate of about 25% using this procedure the other 75% of the time either the procedure was ineffective or the patient died from the malaria itself like this seems like a classic case of fighting fire with fire and look if it was me I would want to get rid of my cess just as much as the next guy but I would probably draw the line at knowingly giving myself one of the world's most devastating infections but hey
anything not to wear a condom the real irony of this one is that for his work voger yarri was given the Nobel prize in medicine and about 1 year later penicillin was invented and malaria treatment was halted immediately hopefully he got to keep the metal number five water now hold on water like water's great for you my doctor says I need to drink 14 gallons a day I never go anywhere without my inspirational water jug blah blah blah blah maybe I should be more specific drowning this cure was focused specifically on victims of rabies probably
the most well-known symptoms of rabies is hydrophobia which is the fear of water and rabies victims have developed this symptom they have an extreme aversion to water and most other fluids this is what causes the foaming at the mouth that we often see in depictions of rabies the victims can no longer swallow their own saliva attempts to drink can cause extremely painful spasms of the throat and esophagus like imagine the feeling you get when you take a shot of tequila now imagine that every day all the time Hydrophobia also makes the disease more easily spreadable
as saliva production is increased and the disease spreads through bites now here's where the cure comes in rabies patients can have an extreme fear of water and how do we get over our fears exposure so naturally rabies victims were submerged in water like clowns in a carnival dunk tank in the hopes that if they ingested enough water the disease would get flushed out of their body and their Hydrophobia with it now the problem is no matter how hard we all tried growing up humans can't breathe underwater in the ancient world these doctors didn't differentiate between
taking water into the stomach and ingesting it or inhaling it filling the lungs with it and drowning as a result this practice usually proved deadly I mean I guess afterwards the victim didn't suffer from rabies anymore they didn't really suffer from anything after that number six tranning tranning or trepanation is simply put the practice of drilling holes in the skull to treat diseases of the brain like nothing says fix me up like taking a metal Stak directly to the Dome this particular procedure has been around for thousands of years and spans multiple cultures all over
the world there's evidence of pronation happening as long as 10,000 years ago and it is widely seen as one of the oldest surgical procedures of which there is concrete archaological evidence like in the early days tonation was largely used in religious rituals as people behaving irrationally were often thought to be occupied by evil spirits and these people would of course argue that they were just having a rough week maybe they were laid off from the temple building crew or maybe they had spilled wine on their finest loin cloth their complaints would fall into fears though
and the local surgeon would show up and whip out his trusty drill a quick hole in the head and voila the evil spirits would fly away into the night trepidation was also used in hopes to cure mental disorders usually the bone was taken off of the skull and would be kept and worn as a charm to ward off the presence of further evil spirits to me that is maybe the most metal thing I've ever heard I'd wear a chunk of my own head to keep me from getting possessed any day now tonation is technically still
in use and is a very practical way to treat brain injuries like many times surgeons have to open up the skull to relieve pressure from swelling or bleeding in the brain and this can be a life-saving procedure to those who have just suffered a traumatic brain injury that being said in the modern sense trepanation is done with Incredible Precision not to mention the benefit of anesthesia in the early days though I can see this one being a little bit uncomfortable moving on to number seven heroin I mean I guess we have to figure out how
dangerous substances are somehow heroin was developed in the late 19th century in Germany by the pharmaceutical company be as a suppress for coughs and other respiratory illnesses it was originally built as get this a non-addictive alternative to Morphine now I want to take a second to dissect the irony of that statement first of all claiming that something is less addictive than morphine is like claiming that your cooking tastes better than a pile of hot garbage it's a low bar to reach and then on top of that bear was flat out wrong over time after it
was commercially available and used as cough medicine for years doctors began to see how easy it was for people to get addicted to and abuse heroin like the medical community quickly took note of the dangers and by the early 20th century its use as medicine was heavily restricted so don't do drugs kids just take a lozenge number eight Red Hot Irons now I just couldn't resist including this one if anyone has ever had a hemorrhoid you know how much of a pain in the ass they can be literally a hemorrhoid is what occurs when the
veins or blood vessels in or around the anus become inflamed swollen and irritated like they can be internal presiding just inside the colon or external hanging down outside the Anish like a bunch of nasty grapes hemr are usually nothing more than a nuisance making it uncomfortable to sit or use the bathroom they can be treated with ointments painkillers and home redies but in the olden days because why the hell not treatment for hemorrhoids included shoving a red hot iron directly into the anus to essentially burn off and cauterize the hemorrhoids to the point where they
were no longer hemorrhoids sure because at that point they were third degree burns either the way I can't sit this procedure was popularized by hypocrates known as the founding father of medicine and to take it one step further hypocrates got specific about how to do this procedure saying that when the cautery is applied the patient's head and hands should be held so that he should cry out for this will make the rectum projectile more imagine if you will getting over the initial embarrassment of having hemorrhoids in the first place you go to your doctor and
the next thing you know you're strapped out being branded like a [ __ ] cow with the doctor Whispering into your ear to further project your rectum I mean this is the stuff of nightmares like these cures vary in their absurdity but one thing is for sure I for one am glad we live in a society where I didn't have to endure any of this
