Outdated Medical Treatments Used Throughout History

If you have ever wondered why there are so many regulations on healthcare and pharmaceuticals or why billions of dollars are spent each year on research, this is the reason why. While ancient medicine is becoming more and more popular, some treatments need to stay in the past. Many of these potions and procedures were not just unhelpful; they were deadly. They say if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. These past failings have advanced the medical industry but at the cost of many innocent victims.

Bloodletting

While it may seem archaic in today’s culture, bloodletting was once one of the most common medical treatments and is believed to have originated from the ancient Egyptians. The theory was the body is composed of four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, and illness was an indication these humors were out of balance. A small amount of blood was removed from the body by applying leeches or by nicking the artery or vein, similar to today’s practice of phlebotomy. It was used to treat a wide array of maladies, ranging from pneumonia to smallpox. From the twelfth through the sixteenth century, this procedure was even routinely performed by barbers, which at the time performed minor surgeries and treatments, along with their hair cutting duties.

Bloodletting may have been a contributing factor to George Washington’s death. He became violently ill with a sore throat just two days before his demise. He was a big believer in this practice, and five to seven pints of blood were removed from his body in less than sixteen hours right before his death. The treatment was of no use. However, there are still some illnesses today that are successfully treated with this. Diseases that produce an excess of blood cells, such as hemochromatosis and polycythemia, are still treated by a more modern form, called phlebotomy.

Continue reading to learn about another outdated medical treatment.

Children's Soothing Syrups

It would be deemed child abuse today for a parent to give their baby morphine, but this is exactly what millions of unassuming mothers everywhere did at the end of the 1800s when they purchased children's soothing syrups. In 1845, Jeremiah Curtis and Benjamin A. Perkins manufactured a medicine to help calm fussy babies, particularly those who were teething. The formula was from Curtis’ mother-in-law, Charlotte N. Winslow, who used this special concoction while caring for infants as a nurse.

Children’s soothing syrups contained sixty-five milligrams of morphine per fluid ounce and also included alcohol. The recommended dosage for infants six months and older was one teaspoon three to four times daily. In the case of dysentery, the dosage was suggested to be given every two hours until stools were no longer runny. The medication appeared to be working because constipation is a frequent side effect of opioids. However, at that high of a dosage, it is no wonder the medicine quickly received the name 'baby killer.' Due to legislation passed in 1911, morphine was required to be removed from the ingredient list. However, children's soothing syrups continued to be sold until 1930.

Keep reading to uncover yet another outdated medical treatment.

Lobotomies

While we still have quite a long way to go in the field of mental health, it is unconscionable the way patients were once treated. The use of straight jackets, lobotomies, and isolation were commonplace treatments to help control the behaviors associated with disorders not fully understood.

A lobotomy is a surgical procedure that severs the connection of the prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain, intended to help calm the patient, without altering their personality or intelligence. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for many complex brain functions, including decision making, reasoning, personal expression, and following social norms. They were performed for severe cases of what society now recognizes as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. After the surgery, many patients were easier to control, but had little to no emotion, and were basically rendered vegetables. Some did not survive the surgery, and others committed suicide soon after.

This controversial surgery was criticized by books such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, which later became a popular film. The first lobotomy was performed in the United States in 1946 by Walter Freeman, and they were still commonly performed as late as the eighties. Once the transorbital lobotomy, where an icepick went through the eye socket to sever the connection instead of drilling through the skull, was introduced, they started being performed as an outpatient procedure at doctor’s offices and mental health facilities. While they are not common practice today, they are still legal in the United States.

Keep reading to unveil more outdated medical treatments used throughout history.

Urine Therapy

Yes, it is exactly what you are thinking. Urine therapy requires the patient to either drink or rub their own or animal urine on their skin. The list of illnesses it is said to cure is extensive, including many chronic diseases such as different types of cancer, human immunodeficiency virus, asthma, and skin disorders. While this sounds like an outdated therapy, just a quick search on the internet will assure you it is still commonly used today, and not just to relieve the sting of a jellyfish—which has been proven to be nothing but a myth.

Urine therapy has been used all over the world for centuries, but it originated from the ancient Egyptian and Roman cultures. Even though it sounds unfathomable to drink your own urine, proponents of this therapy drink copious amounts of water and juice to help dilute their own urine before drinking. It is suggested as much as two and a half liters of urine be consumed daily for the treatment to be effective. Using urine for drinking has extensively been researched by NASA as a way for individuals to have drinking water for prolonged stays in space. However, astronauts filter their urine before drinking.

Continue to learn about more outdated treatments used throughout history.

Trepanation

Trepanation, like lobotomies, was another failed attempt to treat severe mental health disorders. However, it also has a host of other uses, some health-related and others not. Trepanation is a surgical procedure where a doctor drills a hole into the skull. This practice spans back over five thousand years, making it one of the oldest known surgical procedures.

Archaeologists all over the world have found skulls with holes bored into them. Some of these skulls show signs of either neurological disease or cranial injury where the hole was made, while others do not pinpoint a reason for performing the procedure. There is also some evidence indicating it was ritualistic, perhaps believed to remove demons. More recently, it has been performed to treat pain or a brain injury. There are some instances where individuals have performed a crude trepanation on their self.