The history of medicine is filled with bizarre and outrageous experiments and mistakes that seem unbelievable from today’s perspective. When someone had a 40°C fever, doctors sometimes prescribed arsenic formulas; hemorrhoids were “cured” by branding with a hot iron; if you feared bloodletting pain, why not try leeches? For unbearable pain, heroin was the “miracle cure.” Mentally ill patients were treated by strapping bread filled with bull brains to their heads, which was believed to have healing powers… These strange treatments were once considered cutting-edge and routine medicine.
From ancient times to the modern era, gold, silver, mercury, antimony, radium, opium, tobacco, cocaine, alcohol, and even eating dirt were all hailed as miracle cures. Various surgeries — bloodletting, lobotomy, cauterization, enemas, hydrotherapy, and even surgeries without anesthesia — were viewed as effective treatments. “Miraculous therapies” such as electrotherapy, magnet therapy, phototherapy, and radio waves flourished in Western medicine’s history and occasionally still appear in dubious health products today. These curious tales in medical history are both amusing and thought-provoking about the journey of medical science.
Let’s travel through time to explore some of these strange and absurd medical stories.
The “Magic Medicine” Mercurous Chloride
In the early 20th century, parents bought tooth powders claiming to relieve toothaches, strengthen the body, and even help children gain weight. Shockingly, these powders contained mercurous chloride — a mercury compound.
Mercury, commonly known as quicksilver, was once mythologized as a universal remedy. From the 16th century to early 20th century, mercurous chloride was orally administered to “detoxify” the body because patients excreted black stools, believed to be evidence of toxin elimination. This idea was guided by Hippocrates’ theory of the four humors: diseases resulted from bodily fluid imbalances and could be cured by purging toxins.
Benjamin Rush — a founding father of the United States and a psychiatrist — regarded mercurous chloride as an effective treatment for mental illness. During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, he used high doses of mercury combined with bloodletting, a treatment that now appears more lethal than doing nothing but was then considered life-saving. Rush also invented a mercurous chloride detox medicine, claiming it could prevent diseases if taken early. Constipation and loss of appetite were seen as early symptoms demanding prompt treatment.
Similarly, historical figures like Napoleon, Edgar Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln used mercury-based medicines. Lincoln’s “blue pills” contained elemental mercury, which caused typical mercury poisoning symptoms — emotional instability, tremors, insomnia — symptoms that only eased toward the end of his presidency.
Mercury was also used to treat syphilis. Patients endured lifelong toxic mercury steam baths inside chambers filled with liquid mercury vapor, a painful and deadly procedure. It wasn’t until after World War II that mercury-based medicines were gradually abandoned in the West.
The Notorious “Who’s Who” of Emetics
Emetics have a long history with diverse ingredients, mostly minerals or herbs, but their effectiveness varied greatly.
- Saltwater: Ancient sailors believed seawater induced vomiting. The Greeks mixed salt and vinegar; Pliny recommended a sweet mix of honey, rainwater, and seawater, dubbed the “sweet blend.” Yet saltwater emetics were dangerously toxic and often fatal.
- Beer and Garlic Paste: Used by 4th-century Greek doctors to treat snakebites, though their efficacy is questionable.
- Blue Vitriol (Copper Sulfate): Popular after the 9th century and recommended in the 19th century for poisoning cases, though highly toxic itself, causing kidney failure and tissue damage.
- Ipecac Syrup: Once a household staple, it was used to induce vomiting and clear mucus, but modern science denies its efficacy as an emetic.
- Apomorphine: An ancient hallucinogen synthesized in the 19th century and used as an emetic, it was far more effective than other remedies.
- Antimony: The “emetic cup” gained popularity in the 17th-18th centuries, where acidic wine reacted with antimony to form tartar emetic. Antimony pills were reused endlessly and called the “eternal pill.”
Most of these emetics were highly harmful, yet they were once lifesaving in desperate situations.
Radium: The Shining “Era of Radiation Therapy”
After the Curies discovered radium, the medical world hailed it as the “holy grail” of cancer treatment. In the early 20th century, radium was used not only to treat tumors but also high blood pressure, diabetes, rheumatism, tuberculosis, and countless other ailments. Newspapers bombarded the public with ads claiming radium brought “youth and beauty,” promoting radium creams and ointments.
Radioactive water and radon water became fashionable health drinks. In 1921, a patented “radium water jar” allowed ordinary people to drink several glasses daily to prolong life and improve health — leftover water was even used for watering plants! Absurdly, radium suppositories were marketed as “miracle cures” for male vitality and female libido.
The wealthy Eben Byers, who drank “radium thorium water” to boost sexual prowess after an injury, eventually died from multiple radiation-induced cancers; his bones were so contaminated with radioactivity he had to be buried in a lead coffin. Only after the invention of the Geiger counter in 1928 did the scientific community start accurately measuring radiation doses.
Radium therapy was a craze; radioactive spas and bathhouses became noble leisure spots. Famous mineral springs in the Czech Republic and the U.S. bear witness to this fad.
Vibrators for Hysteria: The Unexpected “Sexual Medicine”
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientists and doctors believed female “hysteria” stemmed from sexual repression and genital dysfunction. To treat this, they invented mechanical vibrators, claiming “local therapy” relieved nervous disorders. Vibrator therapy quickly spread and became more efficient with electrical devices, inadvertently leading to the home massager concept.
Meanwhile, sexual activity was widely regarded as a cure for mental illness and gynecological diseases, while abstinence was seen by others as therapeutic. The scientific and social understanding of sexual medicine evolved through a long and winding path.
Beyond Absurdity: Medicine’s Progress and Reflection
These absurd therapies reflect medicine’s twists, blind spots, and trial-and-error evolution. Humanity has advanced by constant experimentation — from superstition to science, herbs to pharmaceuticals, painful treatments to precision medicine. Medical history is littered with jokes and tragedies.
Today, we approach health and treatment with more rationality and scientific rigor, but must also remember history to avoid repeating its mistakes. After all, today’s medical innovations will become tomorrow’s amusing stories.