Medicine in developed countries is gradually recovering to the level as comfortable and safe for humans. But history still remembers the terrible invention of the doctors of the past. Find out what fantastic torture devices and methods used to treat people.
Bloodletting to treat pneumonia
In the old days the infant mortality rate was quite high, and in most cases, the cause of death was completely unknown. Children often died at the age of 6 months to 2 years, which, coincidentally, were at the time of the first teeth.
Medical minds of those times thought that such a coincidence cannot be accidental, so they came to the conclusion that the process of teething is the cause of death of infants. For example, in England and Wales in 1839 more than 5,000 deaths were attributed to teething. Even in 1910 the figure was still 1600.
So how did the doctors fought with deadly teething? Unfortunately for kids, they developed a broad range of interventions including bloodletting, heating and attaching leeches to the gums. In some cases, they even burned the back of the head of the child.
In the sixteenth century the French surgeon Ambroise paré (1510-1590) introduced a method of cutting or puncturing the gums, which later became the preferred. In an article published in The Lancet, explains just how popular was this interference:
John hunter (1728-93) pierces the baby desnudo 10 times. J. Marion Sims (1813-83) performed surgery on the child at age 18 months: as soon As I saw some swelling of the gums, I immediately pulled out my Lancet and cut the gums to the teeth.
The author continues:
Doctor Marshall Hall (1790-1857) wrote that some cases he preferred to cut baby’s gums more than 199 times, and taught my students, recommending to carry out the procedure before, during, and after the appearance of the teeth, sometimes twice a day.
It is still unknown how many children died of infections, which probably developed after such procedures.
Urine for teeth whitening
Today, the urine is almost never used in everyday life. However, in Roman times, urine was such a popular product that people collected it from public urinals. There was even a tax that is paid by the sellers of this Golden liquid.
Many of the methods of application of urine was non-medical, for example, manufacture of gunpowder and soften the skin. However, some used it as a tooth whitener. Ammonia, as previously thought, helping to clean the teeth from stains. Now it is clear that the urine could only affect morning breath.
Urine warmed up to it turned into ammonia, which is an antibacterial and bleaching agents used in household cleaners.
This method of teeth whitening is used not only by the Romans. Even today, some are tempted to try it, but conventional medicine does not recommend such a procedure.
Heroin as cough medicine
Scientists for centuries have developed various mixtures that can cure cough. However, with each new attempt has become clear that cough almost no help. Only one blend, which is sold by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, contained a particularly powerful ingredient: heroin. The addition of this drug was intended to replace opium that was being abused for recreational purposes.
This OTC drug is advertised as containing a non-addictive substitute for morphine. But despite toscore it became clear that heroin is also extremely dangerous, the cure is sold from 1898 to 1910. And only in 1924 the Office of the food and drug administration (FDA) prohibited the sale, import and manufacture of heroin.
Just 20 years ago, Sigrun Smoking in restaurants was considered normal, driving a vehicle under the influence of alcohol was a common phenomenon until the 1970-ies and 1960-ies of pregnant women regularly drank alcohol and smoked. I wonder which of today’s norms plunged us into shock in a few decades?