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• From leeches on your privates to holes in your skull to release demons, we count
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twelve of the worst doctor cures throughout history!
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12 – Bloodletting and Leeches, • Bloodletting was a common medical procedure
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prior to the Nineteenth Century. It involved flushing out bad 'humors', which are black
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and yellow bile, blood and phlegm. In the Middle Ages you could get this done by your
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local barber or surgeon right after a haircut and some light dentistry work.
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• Several bloodletting methods involved drawing blood from veins and arteries using
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barbaric tools, but leeches were the most popular method. The French were particularly
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mad for this; during the 1800s, they went through forty million leeches a year. They
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attached them to patients' arms, legs, torso and other more sensitive areas.
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• Leeches were then be tied to a silk thread, lowered down a person's throat and reeled in like
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a fish. They were also applied to women's vaginas to relieve uterine disease, sexual
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excitement and general 'hysteria'. British gentry had their wives leeched every two weeks.
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• Sometimes leeches wound up lost inside female patients, which certainly didn't
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help with the old 'hysteria'. However, doctors in these cases didn't sweat it because
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they were sure the leech would 'find its way out eventually'.
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11 – Mercury Poisoning, • The silvery liquid Mercury was once used
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to treat everything from scraped knees to constipation. As side effects were indistinguishable
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from the symptoms of syphilis, which it was commonly used to treat.
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• We now know it's extremely toxic and that mercury poisoning comes with a laundry
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list of symptoms. These can include chest pains, heart and lung problems, tremors, muscle
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spasms and psychotic reactions like delirium, hallucinations and suicidal tendencies.
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• Find a new high, kids. Mercury can kill you!
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10 – Trepanation, • Trepanation is a treatment for mental
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illness that began 7,000 years ago. It involved making a hole in the skull using an auger,
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bore, or saw to relieve headaches, mental illness, or even demonic possession.
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• With no knowledge of brain chemistry, ancient doctors believed the mentally ill
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had literal demons living inside their heads, so holes were drilled into patients' skulls
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to allow these spirits to escape. The horrifying thing is that anaesthetics weren't used
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in a lot of these cases. • The practice still goes on today for a
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small number of strange and misguided folks. These days a single small hole is sometimes
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made in the skull to treat brain haemorrhaging after severe head trauma.
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9 – Impotence Shock Therapy, • Impotence is one of the most embarrassing
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problems a man can face … or so I hear. Throughout history, men with uncooperative
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little guys have searched desperately for something that can cure their bedroom woes.
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• With the late Nineteenth Century invention of electricity, men and their frustrated wives
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hoped the new technology could take them straight to Boner Town. Doctors devised a range of
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devices and products designed to get penises to stand to attention. These included electrified
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beds and complicated 'cock-shocking' electric belts. Just the thing to set the mood!
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• Other strange treatments for erectile dysfunction have included testicle implants,
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radium suppositories, ingesting Spanish Flies, drinking frog juice and stimulating blood
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flow with wasp stings and spider venom. 8 – Female Hysteria Treatments,
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• According to Nineteenth Century doctors, female moodiness is a symptom of a very serious
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medical condition called female hysteria. • Any woman who displayed symptoms like
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nervousness, chattiness, unwillingness to talk, irritability, or disobedience towards
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their supreme overlord Victorian husbands was ordered to have a doctor-administered
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vaginal massage until their hysteria subsided. You're right – the Nineteenth Century's
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idea of treatment does sound suspiciously like molestation!
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• The list of symptoms for female hysteria was so long that literally any ailment could
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fit its diagnosis. Doctors eventually invented the vibrator to alleviate hand strain.
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7 – Pain and Rotational Therapies, • As the Treasurer of the Mint, signer of
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the Declaration of Independence and author of various medical textbooks, Benjamin Rush
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was America's most beloved, trusted doctor. • His biggest contribution was in the area
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of psychiatry. Rush believed pain and suffering had curative powers, so patients paid him
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actual money to beat, starve and verbally abuse them – all in the name of medical
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science! His torturous practices also included pouring acid on their backs, cutting them
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with knives and keeping wounds open for months or even years to encourage 'permanent discharge
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from the brain'. • Rush also believed mental illness was
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caused by poor circulation to the brain, so devised something called rotational therapy,
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where patients were twirled from ropes suspended from the ceiling for hours at a time. He was
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one sick creative bastard. 6 – Cocaine Cures,
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• Cocaine is a symbol of Eighties excess, but it may surprise you to learn that it was
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originally used medicinally. • In 1884, Austrian ophthalmologist Carl
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Koller somehow discovered that placing cocaine on a patient's cornea temporarily desensitised
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the eye to pain, making eye surgery less risky. • When word of his discovery spread, doctors
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realised that cocaine could be used as an anaesthetic for all kinds of procedures. Sceptics
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were initially concerned about the drug's addictiveness, but doctors scoffed, claiming
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it was no more addictive than tea or coffee. • By 1900, Americans could walk into any
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pharmacy and purchase a gram of pure cocaine for twenty-five cents. The drug was mixed
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into everything from wines to soft drinks to cigars. Companies offered hypodermic needles
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kits so patients could inject themselves from the comfort of their own homes.
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• Cocaine was additionally prescribed for haemorrhoids, indigestion, appetite suppression,
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fatigue, shyness and toothaches. Even kids got in on the craze until, by 1902, upwards
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of 200,000 Americans were addicted. The addiction became an epidemic, and states and local governments
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were forced to intervene. Good times. 5 – Urine Therapy,
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• Forget rest, nutrition and exercise; an alarming number of cultures and people throughout
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history believed wallowing in urine was the key to good health.
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drank, applied to the skin or used to give a nice … bracing … urine enema. I wonder
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• The sad part is that even though all of these purported benefits have been disproved
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urine therapy is still practised today. Even peeing on a jellyfish sting has no scientific
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by accident when a Viennese doctor named Manfred Sakel accidentally overdosed a patient on
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insulin overdose in 1927. The patient, who was a morphine addict, fell into a deep coma
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patient and found similar results. He was soon inducing insulin comas to schizophrenics
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and other patients. Some claimed to be cured of their afflictions, but that was probably
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and was finally phased out in the 1960s. Sakel wouldn't have been happy. I mean, if you
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3 – Hot Iron Treatment for Haemorrhoids, • In the Middle Ages, it was not uncommon
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Century, an Irish monk named Saint Fiacre became the patron saint for haemorrhoid sufferers.
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accidentally sitting on a pointy stone. The stone is still around today and haemorrhoid
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physicians conceived the idea their white-hot cautery irons to treat the problem. Pulling
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• Eventually a Twelfth Century Jewish physician named Moses Maimonides wrote about his disapproval
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of the surgery and instead recommended the sitz bath, which is still the most common
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treatment for haemorrhoids today. 2 – Extreme Hot and Cold Therapies,
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• For centuries, heat has been used to cure mental diseases. In fever therapy, fevers
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were induced by hot baths, electric heaters, and even deliberate infection with malaria.
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Before penicillin, it was the most effective way to treat syphilis, but patients had to
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be closely monitored as it came with a pretty high risk of death.
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• Extreme cold therapy was the inverse therapy and was just as dangerous. Patients receiving
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this treatment were sometimes refrigerated three days at a time at temperatures as low
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as 20° F below a normal, healthy body temperature. • Hydrotherapy was another risky treatment
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that bears little resemblance to today's relaxing equivalent. Common in the early Twentieth
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Century, hydrotherapy patients usually suffered mental disorders and wrapped like mummies
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in towels that'd been soaked in icy water. Other times they were strapped with restraints
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in a cold tub for days at a time or sprayed with high-pressure water jets – sometimes
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while bound in a crucifix position. 1 – Lobotomy,
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• Finally, we have everybody's favourite mental illness cure, the lobotomy. The lobotomy
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was developed by Portuguese neurosurgeon Egas Moniz, who was inspired by tales of a violent
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monkey that had become docile following the removal of its frontal lobe.
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• He theorised the frontal lobe was the source for mental illness, so cut it out of
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his human patients. The surgeries were a success – relatively speaking – and lobotomies
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became widespread. Moniz even received the Nobel Prize for his efforts in 1949.
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• In the US, Dr Walter Freeman made a lucrative business out of driving around the country
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in his 'lobotomobile', providing on-the-spot lobotomies to anyone who wanted them. Sometimes
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this was schizophrenics, other times bored housewives.
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• Dr Freeman's barbaric technique involved inserting an ice pick into the eye socket
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and swirling it around to 'disable' the frontal lobe. Because his surgical technique
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was dangerously imprecise and his equipment was unsterile, Freeman was basically a drive-by
