In the ever-evolving realm of medicine, practices and beliefs that once held sway have now faded into the annals of history, leaving behind tales as strange as they are true. From the bizarre to the downright dangerous, the medical field has witnessed a plethora of practices that today's science would regard as nothing short of peculiar. These historical medical practices, ranging from the use of leeches for bloodletting to the belief in humors dictating health, not only reflect the limited understanding of the human body in bygone eras but also highlight the journey of medical advancements. As we delve into these long-abandoned techniques, we unearth a fascinating yet sometimes unsettling picture of the lengths to which humanity has gone in its quest for healing and health.

*Bloodletting a patient. Source: The Burnes Archive*

Trepanning

Let’s jump right in with one of the more grisly methods of treatment. Also known as trephination, trepanning is a procedure where holes were drilled into the skull as a cure of headaches, seizures and sometimes even mental disorders. These days, a simple paracetamol will cure most headaches. Back then, however, popping a painkiller wasn’t much of an option.

A trephine or drill was used to create a small circular hole in the skull to relieve the pressure. Hippocrates - a Greek physician - believed that if blood stagnated in the body, it would decay and turn into pus. Therefore, he taught his students that letting this so-called ‘stagnant blood’ out from the body would prevent it causing issues. Imagine having a someone drill into your head with no anesthesia? Sadly, survival rates for such procedures was obviously very low with most people dying from infection. Ironic, given how this specific method was supposed to prevent such things happening.

Next time you have a headache, just grab some painkillers and leave the electric drill alone!

Here we have a lovely painting of a man having a trepanning procedure performed with the expert hands of the Tin Man. A nun balances a book on her head, while a chatty priest sips his Gatorade from his pewter jug. Source: *The Extraction of the Stone of Madness, a painting by* *Hieronymus Bosch*

Mercury

Back in the day, people never realised how dangerous mercury was. No, not the planet, but the chemical Hg. Known as Blue mass, it came in the form of a mercury-based medicine that was taken orally either as a syrup or a pill. It was thought that it would cure several ailments, these being: constipation, tuberculosis, toothache, parasitic infestations, and even pains in childbirth.

It was also used to treat syphilis. Just two pills of the blue mass contained more than one hundred times the daily limit of mercury according to the Environmental Protection Agency in the US. The results of poisoning were certainly not pleasant. Ingested over long term, it often attacks the neurological processes in the human body. It can cause muscle weakness, coordination issues, brain damage, along with nerve loss and vision loss. I guess it’s nothing a little trepanning won’t fix.

*An image displaying some of the more advanced effects of mercury poisoning. Source: Jules Rengade " Les Grands Maux et les Grands Remedes", Paris, c1890*

Lobotomy

Most of us are familiar with this term and have a fair idea of what’s involved. While trepanning offered a more subtle way of gaining entry to the brain, a lobotomy was the rock ‘n’ roll version. Now, I hope your sitting down and not easily shocked when you read the next bit. Here goes. A lobotomy operation involved hammering an ice pick style implement through the eye socket, straight into the prefrontal cortex of the brain with the intention of severing the connections between the frontal lobes and the thalamus. This rather horrific technique was invented by a Portuguese neurologist by the name of Anotonio Egas Moniz, and later developed by an American doctor called Dr Walter Freeman who believed these connections controlled human emotion.

These days, it doesn’t take a genius to know that these procedures actually did more harm than good, with patients often left with severe brain damage, while many died. Those who survived went on to commit suicide. Others were often left with infantile personalities, or even a vegetative state.

*Dr Freeman performing one of his procedures while his chums all gather around. Source: Getty Imags/Bettmann*

Fart in a jar

Yes, you read that correctly. A long time ago, back in the middle ages when the world was still flat, people believed that strong odours, such as farts, would cure things such as the Plague. This particular disease was thought to be caused by bad vapours, and so it was believed that counteracting this with another bad vapour would rid the patient of the deadly disease.

Obviously it didn’t. Needless to say, at the time people were encouraged to keep goats in their houses, or if they had a jar to hand, parping their tandoori whispers into that. What better gift to give your ailing Aunt Matilda than a jar of your best brewed farts.

A plague doctor dressed in typical anti-plague gear. The weird ‘crow beak’ on the mask was said to contain various herbs to ward off the bad vapours of the plague. But we all now it really contains a small jar filled with toots.

Smoke enema

Yeah, you read that right. Blowing smoke up ones arse was literally the thing to do back in the late 1700s. When tobacco first started making its way from overseas someone decided that such smoke could cure many ailments after learning Native American’s performed much the same thing on themselves.

Back then, falling into the London river was apparently an occupational hazard, and for it to happen so frequently, a smoke enema was used to warm them from the inside out and stimulate breathing. People stumbling into the river got so bad apparently, that The Royal Humane Society installed resuscitation kits along certain parts of the river for people to use. These kits contained a long pipe that was placed into the clumsy victim’s rectum, where the other person then placed the other end into their mouths (don’t get them mixed up). A container on the pipe holds the tobacco and assuming the tobacco is lit, the person then blows into it, thereby forcing smoke into the person’s colon. That would revive anyone!

There is one such incident published in The Lancet 1746, that describes an incident where a man’s wife falls into the river, and is pulled out by her husband, with her near death:

“Amid much conflicting advice, a passing sailor proffered his pipe and instructed the husband to insert the stem into his wife’s rectum, cover the bowl with a piece of perforated paper, and ‘blow hard.’ Miraculously, the woman revived.”

— https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)08339-3/fulltext

After which, the sailor threw the pipe in the bin after finding the tobacco had a spicy niff to it.

Soon, such a treatment was used to treat all manner of other ailments such as cholera, typhoid, colds, and even headaches. Beats a trepanning! Of course, no one was thinking of the risks the practitioner put themselves under. Apparently, there was a danger that if the practitioner were to accidentally breathe in, cholera flagellates could enter their lungs and result in a fatal outcome.

Therefore, things got even more surreal with the introduction of the bellows! Yes, that hefty instrument with the pointy end used to blast air into dying fireplaces.

These days, we all know of the dangers of smoke inhalation no matter which orifice you use to inhale it. Now we use coffee. So next time you are dragged from a river barely conscious, just hope someone walks past with a cup of Starbucks willing and ready to pour it up your crack and have you up and hopping about in no time.

*‘Now remember Hargreaves, blow don’t suck. You don’t want a repeat of the last time.’*

And there you have some very bizarre medical practices from days gone by. We’ve certainly learnt a lot since these dark days with less lives lost as a result of bad treatments. Let’s just hope none of them make a comeback in the form of a TikTok trend!