The craziest “medicines” in the history of medicine

Probably each of us at least once had the feeling that the doctors treating us did not understand anything about treatment. Throughout the history of medicine, there have been many absurd and even funny methods of treatment. Below are 10 of the most amazing and unusual among them.

10. Painkiller syrup for children
    Probably, in the 19th century, people were too concerned about the problems of church and state, since they invented a whole series of “painkiller syrups”. It was stated that the medicine is absolutely safe for health. But in fact, the bottle with the miracle remedy contained a huge amount of narcotic substances. More precisely, each of them contained 65 milligrams of pure morphine! After a long time, the New York Times decided to publish a revealing article about this medicine, saying that it contains sulfate, morphine hydrochloride, chloroform, codeine, heroin, opium, hashish. Therefore, it is not surprising that many children died from such “treatment.”

11. Mercury
    Dr. Robert Patrick practiced mercury therapy, claiming that it could cure almost all diseases. As we now know, mercury is a poison. Symptoms of poisoning are pain in the chest, problems with the heart and lungs, coughing, severe muscle spasms, confusion, hallucinations and much more. But it seems that at that time people were not particularly concerned about these serious consequences of mercury exposure, even though people died from such treatment. Moreover, at that time they even tried to cure syphilis with the help of mercury.

12. Heroin is a cough medicine
    It’s scary to believe that in the 19th century people treated coughs by using heroin, because we would never say: “I’m sick, I need to take heroin, and the cough will go away.” There is no need to explain once again how dangerous and poisonous heroin is. However, at that time this drug was considered a harmless “aspirin” that could relieve anyone from coughing.

13. Treatment of impotence with electric belts
    In the 19th century, the miracle of electricity was known to everyone. According to the advertisement, a variety of electric beds and belts could cure a man of impotence. An entire industry developed to produce such belts for men, which could even make the consumer's penis larger. However, using this invention was very problematic, or rather, incredibly painful. Thus, the cries of the first buyers of the miracle belts were heard in neighboring cities.

14. Brain dissection
    Just imagine: you came to a psychiatrist with your problem. He listens to you, taking notes and nodding his head. Then he says, “I think I know how to solve your problem. I'm going to put this in your eyes, then in your brain, using this hammer here. Then I’ll screw it in, cutting off part of the brain, and then you won’t even remember what depression is.” This is exactly how they proposed to solve your “mental” problems in the 1940s. Brain dissection was very popular in the first half of the 20th century and was considered a treatment for any mental illness. The person who invented this method was given the Nobel Prize in 1949. But before they realized that inserting a spike into the brain was not the best way to solve life's problems, about 70,000 people were lobotomized (dissection of the brain).

15. Urine therapy
    It turns out that in the history of mankind there were many people who believed in the magical properties of urine. It was believed that this method could cure a number of diseases, and, moreover, by drinking urine, a person could maintain good health. The most interesting thing, perhaps, is that, unlike the listed methods of treating various diseases, urine therapy still exists to this day. Although there is no scientific evidence that drinking urine can help treat any disease.

16. Bloodletting
    Bloodletting was one of the most