14 kinds of horrible and weird therapies, guess what diseases they are treating?

Modern medicine has come a long way from leeches and blister therapy, but we still have the same problems as ancient people: kidney stones, unwanted pregnancies, infections, and... forks in the eye.

How were these diseases treated before the advent of anesthesia, ultrasound and antibiotics? Here are some treatments (some of which are not considered treatments, but only interventions by doctors on patients). You can guess what they are used for. After reading this article, you will know how you compare to the famous European and American doctors from the 16th to 19th centuries.

In 1530, the arrogant and loudmouthed Paracelsus recommended using mercury salts to make patients urinate and drool. Some of his contemporaries also recommended pouring mercury into a patient's mouth until he drooled three pints (about 1,700 ml) of saliva, and he would be cured. So what common 16th-century disease was this method used to treat?

In the 18th century, mercury was still performing the same mission. The martyrdom of Mercury by John Sintelaer. | Wellcome Library, London

The answer was syphilis. This venereal disease had exploded across Europe since Spanish explorers returned from the Americas. Paracelsus believed that syphilis was caused by invisible particles that passed from person to person (he wasn’t far off the mark; syphilis was caused by a tiny bacterium called Treponema pallidum), and that heavy salivation could wash these particles out of the patient’s body. While mercury did kill the syphilis bacteria if the infection was not too severe, it could also cause ulcers, kidney failure, brain damage, and death.

Friar Agustín Dávila Padilla recorded in 1596 that an elderly friar, on doctor's orders, "drank what the Indians called 'chocolate.' They dissolved an almond-like particle called 'cocoa' in a little hot water, to which they added spices and sugar." What ailment was the doctor trying to cure with this tasty drink?

Image | Pixabay

The answer was kidney disease. Davila Padilla implicitly suggested that the friar's pain was due to "infected urine." For a long time, the Aztecs used chocolate as currency, food and medicine. It quickly became popular after being brought back to Europe by Spanish conquistadors because of its sweet taste and its supposed ability to treat digestive and nervous system diseases. However, its reputation as a cure-all was opposed by some people: in 1662, the royal physician of King Charles II of England wrote a special article warning people not to be superstitious about chocolate's healing properties.

Those chocolate-loving monks would have disapproved of their English contemporary John Gerard, a botanist who published The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes in 1597, in which he recommended juniper berries “boiled in wine and drunk” to treat what ailment?

Juniper berries | Pixabay

The answer was "late menstruation" - in other words, unwanted pregnancy. Girard was unusually candid compared to other Tudor doctors, saying that the juniper drink could "force out the blood, expel the placenta, abort the dead baby, and eliminate the problem" - that is, terminate late pregnancy. Historians believe that Tudor women did use juniper-like abortion drugs (there are still rumors today that juniper causes cows to abort), because the illegitimacy rate at that time was surprisingly low (only about 3 in 100 births) for an era without reliable contraceptives. Moreover, at the time, one in 100 births resulted in the death of the mother, so Tudor women were quite keen to terminate pregnancies.

London physician Thomas Willis died in 1675, but the fourth edition of his Dr. Willis's Receipts for the Cure of All Distempers is still being sold 26 years later. In this book, the late Dr. Willis recommended that peony root be ground into powder and mixed with amber and "a man's skull" to treat what ailment?

Since the skull is used, the disease being treated may be related to the head? | mediamilitia.com

The answer is stroke. In the 17th century, human bones, blood and fat were popular medicinal ingredients, and King Charles II of England often took the King's Drops, a distillation of human skulls. The principle of using skulls to treat strokes is the principle of homeopathy. However, despite taking the drops, Charles II still died of a stroke in 1685.

Soon after Charles II died, his successor, James II, in 1686, ordered Sir Gourdon to give his prescription for a mixture of “roots of Agrimony, Primrose, Peony, and Boxwood Leaves” and “the black part of the Crab’s Claw,” mashed and boiled, to be drunk daily for three days before the new and full moons. Fortunately, it could also be “sweetened with Sugar or Treacle.” So what was this crab claw boiled and sweetened with peony root supposed to cure?

Linking the phases of the moon with this disease is somewhat similar to a certain view in ancient China.

The answer is rabies. The rabies virus is transmitted through the bite of infected animals, usually dogs. Goulden advocated feeding the dogs crab claws and peony roots soaked in milk. Rabies was incurable until Pasteur invented a vaccine in 1885. To this day, rabies is still deadly, with tens of thousands of people dying from the disease each year and more than 15 million people being vaccinated after being bitten.

For the British aristocracy, the 18th century was an "age of indulgence", with tables filled with roast beef, pies and puddings stuffed with game. In 1718, British pharmacist John Quincy published the Compleat English Dispensatory, which included a syrup mixed with honey, cloves, ginger, morning glory and "colchicum root". What disease did Quincy want to treat with this prescription?

British painter James Gillray has created many works on the theme of this disease. | Wellcome Library, London

The answer is gout. This "king's disease" is often associated with rich food and a lot of alcohol. It is a disease that only the rich will suffer from. Quincy may have been on to something when he included autumn daffodil in his prescriptions: autumn daffodil contains colchicine, which doctors today often use to relieve the pain and inflammation of gout patients - all of which are caused by uric acid accumulation caused by improper diet or genetic factors. However, in Quincy's time, some gout patients welcomed the pain because they believed that gout could protect them from other diseases.

Also during the Libertine Age, English physician Thomas Aery treated a poor 26-year-old widow. In 1744, he prepared a tincture for her and told her to “take a few drops frequently.” What was he trying to cure by preparing a tincture, bleeding from her arm, and restricting her to rice water and broth?

In an era when most diseases were not properly understood, bloodletting became a universal remedy. This 18th-century painting by an unknown artist. | Wellcome Library, London

The answer was a fork in the eye. The accident may have been related to Christmas, since the patient was injured on December 26, but Airey wrote only that she had "injury to the cornea of ​​the right eye, caused by the prong of an ordinary dinner fork," without mentioning Christmas. The young woman suffered a lot from cleaning her eyes with Airey's tincture, regular bleeding of her arms, blisters on her scalp, and a strict diet, but after two months, she was basically recovered, except for "a slight darkening of the right side of objects."

Airy was not the only 18th-century physician to have achieved success. In 1758, Patrick Brydone wrote proudly of his own achievements. He reported that a 45-year-old laborer from Coldingham, Robert Haigs, had recovered after receiving his regular electric shocks: “After thirty or forty severe shocks, he became pale, and his steps became unsteady, and he would have fallen to the ground, had he not been supported by some one.” So what was it about this Haigs that required “severe shocks”?

Image | Pixabay

The answer was Plasmodium vivax, or malaria. After giving Heggs repeated electric shocks until he could no longer stand, Bryden happily wrote, the poor patient “became free of his malarial symptoms… and lived in good health for four months.” Like chocolate in the 16th century, electric shocks became a cure-all after the invention of the Leyden jar in 1746, which could store and deliver electricity.

In 1761, Mr. Strong, a surgeon in New England, did not give up because of the lack of a Leyden jar. To treat his patient, he first "took a handful of fine sea salt, sprinkled and rubbed it liberally over the patient's body." Then he applied a poultice made of burdock root to the patient, and then gave him a drink of saffron, water, and ash bark to induce vomiting. Two days later, the patient was "completely recovered," and Strong attributed this to the salt. So what disease did this American colonist who was covered in salt and vomited frequently have?

Image | Pixabay

The answer was a rattlesnake bite. The colonist was "bitten by a rattlesnake between the great and second toes of his left foot." After cutting open the wound, Strong (literally) rubbed salt into it.

In 1828, in Bristol, England, surgeon Henry Perry administered a rigorous regimen to certain patients. His first step was bleeding ("either by cupping or leeching") and blistering. His second step was to induce vomiting with antimony, "so that the patient would continue to retch without actually vomiting." His third step was to give the patient enough mercury to make him drool a little. And finally, "there is nothing wrong with a little opium before the patient goes to bed," such as a dose of Batley's Anodyne. So what was wrong with Perry's bleeding, blistered, nauseous, and confused patients?

Similar to bloodletting, blistering the patient's skin and releasing fluid was also used as a treatment for various diseases. This painting from the 11th century shows Albucasis blistering a patient. | Ernest Board/Wellcome Library, London

The answer was pneumonia. Perry believed that this lung-causing infection was caused when an overheated person suddenly got cold or wet, causing blood vessels to constrict and squeeze blood into the lungs. Perry advocated that this "inflammation" could be relieved by bloodletting. Perhaps the patient's symptoms were indeed relieved by Bartlett's analgesic.

In 1832, Thomas Latta, a doctor in Edinburgh, Scotland, read about several experiments done on dogs, and he took "a quantity of hot water, dissolved some salt in it," and slowly injected six pints (about 3,400 ml) into an elderly woman over 30 minutes. The woman had already "been subjected to all the usual treatments," all without success. She died after the saline injection, but Latta's second patient, after a similar injection, recovered within two days. What was the first saline infusion ever used to treat?

Image | Pixabay

The answer is cholera. This terrible diarrheal disease broke out in Britain in 1831. Another Scottish doctor first noticed the lack of salt and water in the blood of cholera patients. He experimented with injecting saline into dogs and published the results in The Lancet in 1831. Inspired by this, Latta also tried a similar method on cholera patients. Unfortunately, Latta died in 1833, and his saline treatment was ignored until someone else proposed a similar method 50 years later. To this day, 120,000 people die from cholera every year, and serious cases are often treated with intravenous injections such as saline.

In 1867, British doctor William Domett Stone reported on his treatment of a 26-year-old single man named "FG". Stone "taught the patient to eat more meat and suck two eggs every morning", and also asked him to drink a special syrup twice a day, which was mixed with iron powder and cod liver oil. Eating more meat, eating two eggs, and adding cod liver oil syrup, what disease are these all for?

Unfortunately, this disease does not seem to have a direct relationship with malnutrition. | Pixabay

The answer was paralytic insanity caused by masturbation. Like many doctors at the time, Stone was convinced that "excessive mental work, combined with inadequate nutrition and hypersexuality, alone or in combination, may lead to paralytic insanity." He also wrote angrily that when he asked FG if he masturbated, he replied, "Who doesn't?"

Thirteen years after Stone confronted his unrepentant patient, English physician William Robert Smith offered a cure for “a series of most distressing and chronic complaints.” He wrote: “A spoonful of cold water at night, a cold bath in the morning, and cold compresses on the abdomen, a diet of plenty of fruit, oatmeal, bran bread, a cigar after breakfast, and a daily walk, will produce the desired effect.” So what can bran bread and a cigar after breakfast cure?

This disease is related to diet! | Pixabay

The answer is constipation. Aside from the cigar part, Smith's advice about using exercise and high-fiber foods to achieve the "ideal effect" all lines up with the Mayo Clinic's advice for treating chronic constipation.

In 1887, British doctor Edward Dutton cured an 18-year-old woman by using "massage, isolation and overfeeding". He fed her milk, eggs, buttered bread and "beef tea". After nearly three months of treatment, the woman was able to walk nearly 6 miles (about 9.7 kilometers) a day and "felt quite good". So what did the beef tea, isolation and abdominal massage cure her of?

Image | Pixabay

The answer was hysteria. The woman was so ill that Dutton wrote that when he first met her, "she was skin and bones," weighing only 85 pounds. The patient's mother said that her daughter had skipped breakfast a few years ago and spent her lunch money on "sweets and cakes," and then she began vomiting frequently, "profusing large amounts of material throughout the day" - symptoms that are close to what we know as bulimia. After a few months of treatment, the patient had gained 25 pounds, and Dutton wrote happily, "She has remained quite strong and healthy since then."

By Megan Cartwright

(PhD student in toxicology at the University of Washington, AAAS mass media fellow, science writer and editor.)

Translation: Pigs on the Adriatic Sea

Editor: odette

The copyright of the translation belongs to Guokr and may not be reproduced without permission.

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