Bizarre Medical Practices From History 

If you don't have a medical license you can't loose your license.

It’s kinda miraculous that anyone survived at all!

This made me appreciate modern medicine even more.

The "tying a loose tooth to the doorknob and slamming the door" trick doesn't seem nearly so painful anymore.

There’s plenty of absurd modern “alternative medicines” that get wide popularity which suggests just another glitch in human reasoning

01:53 - Syphilis is caused by a bacteria, not a virus. Malaria is caused by a single cell parasite, not a virus either.

I wonder what societies 150 years from now will think of our current medical practices.

As an orthodontic assistant I’m very grateful for modern medical technology

DR. Antonio Moniz was actually awarded the Nobel Prize for coming up with the lobotomy procedure. That's crazy to think about today.

“Nothing cures you like butt-chugging turpentine” is now my motto.

As to the Tapeworm thing, I would relate to my life science students that women would go to a Doctor to get a script for them prior to their wedding day so that they could fit into their wedding dresses then go back after the wedding to get another script to purge the worm and stop losing weight. One of my students actually related a story that her grandmother told her that her mother got a script for her in preparation for her wedding. As to the radium thing, when I was teaching radiological controls for the US Navy we had a student bring in a water cooler that they found in his grandmother's attic that had a pamphlet with it touting the cooler ability of "restoring that healthful natural radioactivity to your water". We tested some of the scrapings of the ceramic liner with our instruments and yes it was highly radioactive. So radioactive he called home, told his parents and they had us safely dispose of it.

Radium as a prescription was absolutely insane.

I would like to see the history of weird surgeries.

A video on how women going into labor/giving birth were treated throughout history might be a good one. Terrifying topic, really. Edit: Clarification

I remember. during US Army Basic Training, 1982, our Drill Sergeants told us all on several; occasions that at any point during training we devolved athlete's foot, all we needed to do instead of going to "sick call" was to simply to pee on our feet when we showered, and presto, the athlete's foot would go away.. I never fell for it, but through out my 12 years in the Army I'd heard this many times

My FIL is a retired mortician and Funeral home owner. He used Formaldehyde on the kids poison ivy. 😳

That reminds me. I have an appointment with my barber for a haircut, and my annual blood letting!😳

Having to Live with one of the worse sickness can be exhausting but I still have to believe I can be healed.

Pov: loving history, and wanting to time travel Also pov: remembering that modern medicine is practically brand new to the world

Whenever I watch weird history videos it reminds me of how lucky I am to have been born around this time because holy sh*t people were wild back then

Hell I'm old enough to remember my cuts and scrapes being treated with mercurichrome- which has mercury in it.

Always learning something knew from our favorite history professor 😃

Bits of expired mice😂🤣

Reminds me of that scene in the movie Star Trek: The Voyage Home where Bones is astounded by the barbarity of modern medicine practiced by surgeons in... the 1980s. Just you wait kids, what you think now is cool and leading edge will be seen by your great grandchildren as outlandish, insane, and cruel. It's gonna happen, it always does.

"If it glows in the dark, it must be good for you" - Terry A. Davis

This is just TOO weird for me! Guess I don't have the stomach for it.

I'm just very happy that I'm alive in the 21st century. For too many people in history life really was "nasty, brutish, and short."

Drinking Radium, that's absolutely bananas. 🤣

YAY he it is another Sunday morning in beautiful Middle Tennessee its not raining here today the sun is out and temperatures are going to be in the 70's !!! Weird History is my FAVORITE Sunday morning ritual!!! I love the narration his voice has a wonderful quality it's nice for storytelling!!! Learning something new every Sunday without interruptions from my job ,dogs,cats and anything else that might be a distraction is fantastic!!! I watch all week too but Sunday morning is my favorite 😍 thank you Weird History I hope yall have a fantastic and prosperous day!!!

Parafin oil is still used by body-builders who want larger biceps, also in fewer cases for glutes and pecs. They regret all regret doing it because it is non-reversible and (As described in the video) causes extreme pain, cramps and granulomas etc., usually after 8-10 years.

I just found this channel and I am ecstatic!! So glad you guys are doing this!!

How about the history of leeches & maggots in medicine? Both are still used…

Reminds me of the jokes from A Million Way to Die in the West lol "Hey Doc I have a tooth ache" "Oh you need a Donkey kicking" Future generations will probably look back at us like we were insane for treating cancer with radiation though.

Think about the people 100 years from now watching a video similar to this about our current medical treatment.

About twenty years ago, comfortably in the twenty-first century, I met a lady who had recently taken up smoking in order to lose weight. Having finally given up the habit permanently (so far) a few years earlier, I advised her that she would probably lose that particular bet. For one, while it's true that people who quit smoking tend to gain weight, the opposite is not nearly as likely. Except of course that if one is subjected to chemotherapy or radiation therapy to treat the cancer it's likely that the patient will lose weight prior to dying a painful death. I lost touch with her, but hope the intervention worked.

I guess painful hemorrhoids have always been a thing… I will cross that bridge when I get there, but for now it’s funny.

I remember when I was a little girl, my mother used to put "Mercurichrome" on our minor cuts. I was horrified later on to find out that there was mercury in this. It didn't do any harm to us apparently, but you can't get it today.

My doctor told me a cat's purr would help my depression. It actually worked.

A+ video! Such a fascinating and unique topic with great visuals and narration. It is an honor to be fan of this channel, especially before it becomes a phenomena. Soon A-List celebrities will tell their fans they "discovered" this channel on RU-vid.

When I did my medical training as a lab tech they told me urine was sterile.

Poor mice! I don't want them in my apartment, but I feel so sad for them.

An old folk remedy for earache is to pour the patient's urine into the hurting ear. Easy to pass off as quackery, but it actually works.

I don't feel so bad about taking the cheese grater to my foot calluses now.

the larve of vcarious parasites including tape worm can migrate to other parts of the body. Often the heavy tissue in the legs where there is lots to eat, but can also include the brain.

Please do a video on history of fire fighting And another on history of mining

I’m glad science has gotten to a place where we can finally blindly and without question follow the advice of the medical field.

As always, this was great

I may have mentioned this in another video but powdered emeralds was a popular plague cure in the Middle Ages.

Ancient Egyptians used fly poop for medicine purposes??? I don't think I've ever seen fly poop before. It's too tiny!

The process of a lobotomy was horrible. The directions were to stick an ice pick past the side of the eye, through the eye socket into the frontal lobe to reduce the incision point. Then the doctor would move the pick back and fourth and side to side while asking the patient to recite poetry or a song. They would continue this until the patient could no longer remember or correctly speak what was asked of them and then stop.

very entertaining and educational.

Omg !! It's hard to believe many of those where used back in the day. Out of all those I've only heard about the tapeworm diet. Dat would be heavy hell-no for those treatments !!

some of these are crazy!!!

Thanks for this! ⚕ #WeirdHistory #MedicalHistory #Medical

Back in 95, when I was 16, I was advised by an Army doctor to start smoking. I had low blood pressure and was overweight. Yeah.

6:40 If these poor people only knew...

Why did I click on it? Oh yeah it's weird history

@ 7:45 Dog poo is a good home remedy for chapped lips. While it actually doesn't do anything for your lips, it does help keep you from licking them. 🤣

I have Ankylosing Spondylitis and suffer terrible intractable chronic pain. Bee stings are the ONLY thing that helps like a strong opiate, but is regulated and controlled more strictly! I'll be on heavy opiates for the rest of my life. My insurance pays $4,099 per MONTH, but won't okay a bee session which is thousands cheaper and lasts longer! If you aren't allergic to bee stings, find a practitioner in your area. It hurts about as much as a very small tattoo and the results are amazing. 😊

I enjoy your humor and voice.

Thank God (or whoever,whatever you believe In) for modern day science!

Maybe the turpentine enema would work if a lighted match was used.

it’s crazy to think about how ppl had to endure excruciating experiences for things we just take a pill for or apply ointment to now

In the 1920s and 1930s, for seven years, my Mom took arsenic as prescribed by her doctor.

World's best toothache medicine is superhot chilis such as Carolina Reapers. Initially the pain is worse than the toothache, but when it wears off the toothache is gone.

I'm under 40 (ok, JUST under, but still) and I have mercury fillings in some of my teeth. Sadly, a lot of this weird stuff isn't as long ago as we like to think.

They've been using different people and they shouldn't. THIS is the narrator.

Man, that's something. Weird and strange.

You're amazing dude i like your channel God bless you and bless your family 😊

I bet there are more than ten bizarre medical practices thatvweren't shown here.

I thought the “honor” of wiping the Royal butt was one of the weirder jobs. Now, we have, what? the Royal enema inserter??? I’ll be avoiding that chair, well, like the plague!!

you can add a whole bunch of present medical "practices" that , if we take in the consideration the "for profit only" feature and the " I don't care if it brings harm as it is well written in the disclaimer" general idea behind the majority of drugs pushed by the complexe pharma industrial, that has the majority of medecins criminally associated. Alleged. (that for YT algorithm).

Enema with a mix of radium and mercury is the secret to eternal life

OK now do Crystal-healing gemstone people.

This commentary is great! 😂

You make me laugh. I think you for that. O man... to me it would be something like "the dog biscuits but not the kind in the Box". I'd have to think twice about that one. No I wouldn't cuz I wouldn't do it!!!

Are we going to see a new Timeline any time soon?

Should totally do a video on how Galen was over 2000 years ahead of his time.

no lie, i caught a tapeworm and lost 70 lbs in 6 months. the fact it i could only eat once a day at bedtime then had super diarrhea in the morning probably had something to do with it. finally went to the dr and got it taken care of and proceeded to gain back the weight over the next six years

The rat part REALLY caught me off guard wtf

WOW! I didn't realize that labotomies were at the height of their prime within the last century!!! I thought this was, at the very least, a Victorian era procedure. Learn something new every day!

Lyrica for nerve pain, that’s quackery. Tylenol for herniated discs. Advil for torn ligaments All modern quack-tastic 🐄 💩

It blows my mind that doctors used to promote smoking as good for your health! I smoked off and on for years before quitting, and I never once thought such a thing.

I grew up in a coal mining camp, all the kids, myself included, played with mercury. Mining equipment used to use these big mercury switches, they were about the size of a grown man's index finger. Thee switches would go bad for whatever reason and the mine operators would throw them away. Our fathers would bring them home, help us crack them open and recover the mercury. We often kept it in baby food or other small jars or bottles. We would play with the stuff for hours at a time. Use it in school science projects and various other things. In fact I would guess that the way they treat an old thermometer getting broken today, it's a wonder that West Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Kentucky, and Southwestern Virginia haven't been declared an environmental hot spot an quarantined over the amount of mercury that was discarded into landfills and/simply spilled due to a kids mercury jar getting dropped. I knew kids who had small jars full of the stuff, I also knew an old man who had 2 16oz Mason jars full of it. Speaking of, I would love to find an old heater thermostat because they contain small mercury switches and were far more accurate and dependable than the "manual" metal plate thermostats in modern small heaters today. They get stuck and are generally only good for a winter or two before the entire heater has to be replaced.

"Butt chugging" is not a phrase I ever thought I would hear.

"the patron saint of hemorrhoids sounds like someone you meet at an airport chili's" is probably the funniest thing I've heard on this channel so far

‘TURBO POISONOUS’ ☠️ had me laughing so hard

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy?

"Butt-chugging turpentine", Great band name! :)

My mother was done a lobotomy when a child, for no legit reasons now a days. Now, me being a Dr it just baffles me how/why??!

I would like to hear more on leaching.

Eben Byers' jaw fell off from excessive use of Radithor, a radium product 😳

@5:28 wtf was that pronunciation of advertisement 😭😭

People unfortunately in some countries still to this day use tapeworms for weight loss

The hemorrhoid one made me do a scream similar Tom's from Tom & Jerry.

My great-great and triple great grandfathers both died from mercury poisoning, while being treated for RA. My father has RA, and thankfully treatment has dramatically improved. I keep 🚬 in a cabinet, just for being umm, ‘backed up’. Faster then pills. Not recommended for those that may become addicted, of course.

I would like to hear more about tuberculosis

Strange to see a random photo of Ramana Maharshi at 2:53. His life is definitely worth its own video.

This one wasn't mentioned... But my Mom was given Electro-Shock Therapy, to "Treat" her Paranoid Schizophrenia.⚡🧠⚡😬

I don't think it's about the "hardest to believe" It's about how these people studied what they had before them. Some of the same chemicals used in the 14th century are still in part used today. Today a person would look at the ingredients of the past and wonder where their minds were at back. Now we realize that is all those physicians were limited in what knowledge and available ingredients they had. They were smart people who did care about their patnetis.