A hot iron right up the arse

Hemorrhoids have been a bitch ever since the dawn of time. But for people in the Middle Ages, it was even worse. Why? Well, the ‘cure’ was to have a hot iron shoved right up inside of you by a monk. Did it work? Not at all.

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Blood Letting

Medical doctors of the days of yore once believed that if you were sick, it was because the fluids in your body were unbalanced in one way or another. The way they would ‘remedy’ this is by cutting you open and letting the blood just sort of…drain and even things out.

2

Cocaine

Before doctors learned about just how addictive the drug was, cocaine was distributed as a ‘healer of all medical ailments’ from toothaches to hangovers.

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Urine for some healin’

Medical practitioners in the past once believed that urine was truly one of the great healers in the natural world. It wasn’t particularly given to you for anything specific, but it was advised that you drink the stuff just to feel generally healthier. Furthermore, people would rub it into their skin.

4

Chloroform

Surgery back in the old days was terrible. You’d be given nothing but a stick to bite down on in order to deal with the pain. So when chloroform came around in the 1800’s, it was great for putting people to sleep while under the knife. However, it wasn’t long before tonnes of complications and even deaths became associated with chloroform, so by the 50’s it was ultimately phased out of medical practices.

5

Heroin

What first started as a way to stop people from constantly coughing, heroin soon became the go-to medicine for all kinds of respiratory sicknesses. It wasn’t long before people became addicted to the stuff and the ‘medicine’ was banned.

6

Emetics

Emetics were, in their simplest forms, toxic things you’d eat or drink to induce vomiting. Back when it was thought that throwing up was the best possible way to rid your body of whatever it was that made you sick, emetics was the way to go. Sadly, more people died from them than actually getting better.

7

Soothing Syrup

‘Soothing syrup’ was a quick and easy way for parents to calm down disobedient kids in the 19th century. However, the stuff was pretty much packed with terrible narcotics. Take ‘Mrs. Winslow’s’ for example. Its one and only ingredient? Morphine.

8

Electric Belts

Whether it was for impotence, indigestion, or anything in between, electric belts were said to shock you right back into shipshape. These things lasted a little while during the late 19th century when electricity was becoming more and more common, but they quickly faded away when people smartened up and realized they didn’t work for anything.

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Trepanation

This is one of the earliest known forms of surgery in all of history. It was really easy to perform, too, as all you needed to do was drill a hole in a head. It was said that the hole would relieve things like migraines and seizures.

10

The Smoke Enema

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, people who were dealing with any sort of respiratory problems would often turn to the smoke enema. It was just like how you would imagine it would be: Rubber tubes and bellows shooting smoke up the ass. The idea was that a little bit of tobacco smoke would stimulate your insides and heal you.

11

Dung Contraceptives

In Ancient Egypt, it wasn’t uncommon for women to use dried crocodile feces as a form of contraceptive. It wasn’t eaten, however. The stuff was inserted right into the vagina. Gross.

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