The Most Bizarre Medical Misconceptions in History
Myths and delusions that will make you feel thankful for living in the 21st century
In a day and age when almost every parcel of human knowledge is but a well thought through click away, it may be easy to forget that there was a time, not so long ago, when information was not only scarce but abundant with error and fallacy.
Lack of necessary technology and misunderstanding of cause and effect paired with ample superstition and belief that many ailments were caused by the wrath of God were not exactly helpful when it comes to scientific progress and gaining a better grasp of the functions and quirks of the human body.
Remembering our humble beginnings every now and then may be of use not only to show us that we’ve come quite a long way but also to remind us that we are not immune to mistakes that can sometimes prove to be deadly.
So, without further ado, here are some of the weirdest, craziest and downright ickiest medical myths that have plagued mankind throughout history.
1. Headache Cures Bound to Give You an Even Worse Headache… Or Kill You
Headaches and migraines have been companions to the conditio humana ever since the dawn of time. Hence it’s no wonder that there has been an abundance of cures and treatments for said ailment throughout history.
However, most of those treatments were not exactly safe to say the least. One of the most widely used treatment was trepanation, which is a fancy name for drilling a hole in the skull of the patient or removing a piece of bone altogether in order to “release the evil spirits that cause the headache”. It was practiced all over the world in different periods, ranging from prehistoric to late Middle Ages. Bonus fact: there’s evidence of people actually surviving those surgeries.
Some other errr… creative treatments included shoving a vulture’s brain up your nose, making incisions in the temples and then inserting cloves of garlic, as well as binding dead moles on your head.
2. Galen’s Conception Theory
Galen was a renowned Greek physician, philosopher and surgeon in the Roman Empire. Although he has contributed a lot to medicine as such, some of his ideas were not as superb as others and actually had quite grim consequences.
Namely, Galen construed the “dual seed” theory, which basically means that not only men but women as well release seed during sexual intercourse. That seed is the basis for conception, as the embryo is created by its intermingling. In order for the seed to be released, however — yes you’ve guessed it — one needed to achieve an orgasm. This idea survived all the way through the Middle Ages, and there were traces of it even as late as the 19th century.
Both male and female orgasms were deemed necessary for conception.
In theory, that sounds great, right? Finally a reason compelling enough for men to pay a little more attention to female pleasure. Want a son and heir? Go get your missus happy then.
In practice, things did not work out as great though, especially when it comes to rape victims. If the victim had the misfortune to get pregnant as a result of her rape, she immediately lost all legal grounds for prosecution. The reasoning behind it? She surely must have had pleasure from the act itself, or she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first place.
3. Washing Hands Before Medical Procedures Was Not Considered a Must
Having watched a ton of medical TV shows in our lifetime we are all too familiar with the image of a surgeon thoroughly washing and disinfecting his hands before pulling on gloves and proceeding to the OR. That image is not timeless though.
As late as the 19th century, many medical experts were utterly clueless to the vital importance of hygiene, as the understanding of germs and bacteria was still primitive at best and non-existent at worst. A man who made a breakthrough, or at least attempted to, was a Hungarian doctor called Ignaz Semmelweis.
Observing two maternity wards in a hospital he was working in he noticed something peculiar. The mortality rate of women was nearly five times higher in the ward which was staffed by all-male doctors and students than in the ward staffed by female midwives. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, after conducting thorough research and comparing all the differences he could think of, Semmelweis finally realized that the probable cause for such a high mortality rate was the fact that the doctors in the first ward performed autopsies among other things, while the midwives did not.
Semelweis’s discoveries were not looked upon favorably by his fellow doctors.
The main issue with that was that the aforementioned doctors wouldn’t be bothered to actually clean their hands and instruments before switching from dissecting cadavers to delivering babies. When Semmelweis instructed his staff to disinfect their hands and instruments with chlorine, the death rate plummeted in no time.
However, Semelweis’ colleagues were not exactly thrilled about his findings and deemed his ideas nothing short of preposterous.
So he got fired shortly after, the chlorine and disinfection practices were discontinued and would remain so until the early 20th century, and as for the good doctor, he didn’t get a happy ending either. He was committed to a lunatic asylum, in which in an ironical twist of fate he died of sepsis — a fatal complication of an infection in the bloodstream, which is essentially the same disease he was fighting so hard to save his patients from.
4. Babies Cannot Feel Pain
Another controversial idea which has nestled in the center of medical thought in the early 19th century was that babies were incapable of feeling pain. The consequence of such a notion was nothing short of chilling: any and every medical procedure on infants was performed with no anesthetics whatsoever. None. At best, they would be administered a muscle relaxant in order not to toss and turn about, no matter the duration, intensity and difficulty of the procedure in question.
This inhumane practice wouldn’t be forgone until the late 80s.
The especially horrifying part is that this belief was only strengthened by medical studies conducted in the 1940s and would continue to permeate medical science up until 1987. when the American Academy of Pediatrics finally declared it unethical to operate on newborns without anesthetics.
5. Acne Treatments
Acne, much like any medical condition that affects physical appearance as well, have always been a problem people were very keen on getting rid of. It’s no surprise then that there’s a downright torrent of ages-old cures, treatments and recipes that “work like magic” in eliminating said condition.
Although some of these treatments were actually good, as they proscribed ingredients used even today in skincare, such as sulphur and honey, most of them were of rather questionable quality, to say the least.
Apart from applying a nice, thick coat of faeces of various animals (mostly birds) on your face, your doctor might also advise you to wipe your face with a cloth while looking at a shooting star which would make your acne magically disappear just like the star. Other amusing remedies included massaging urine into your face (bonus fact: “urine therapy” is still alive and kicking today, just Google it for shit and giggles) or rubbing your skin with leek leaves which ensured you would emanate quite an essence if nothing else.
Common treatments often included ointments with mercury and arsenic which would inevitably lead to an untimely death of the user.
Some of the more risqué remedies were the all-time favorites of skin care not only during the dark Middle Ages but well into the 20th century — mercury, as well as arsenic to help cover all those nasty marks and blemishes. Given that mercury and arsenic are both lethal and tend to accumulate over time in the body of the unhappy user, the patients would go mad and die sooner or later. But hey, at least they weren’t bothered by acne anymore, so I guess that’s a sort of an upside, right?
If you’ve found any of this interesting or you’re privy to some kooky info yourself, feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.
You are also welcome to check out my other articles for some more goodies.
