20 Disturbing Medical Treatments That Once Seemed Like Good Ideas

Bloodletting stemmed from the old conviction that the cause of many maladies was the imbalance of the body’s ‘humors’ especially excess blood. The practice involved the use of leeches or cutting veins. It was thought to remedy anything from fevers to disorders of the mind. Generally, bloodletting was ineffective, and even after the practice, the condition of the patient was likely to worsen. Bloodletting was thought to be one of the most unnecessarily dangerous expressions of the inhumane practice of medicine.

For hundreds of years, mercury was a common ingredient in treatments for both syphilis and other illnesses. Patients would receive mercury in the form of pills or ointments and would then be observed for symptoms of drooling and vomiting. These were misinterpreted by doctors as symptoms of some sort of healing. In reality, mercury is very toxic to the body and causes damage to the brain, kidneys, and nervous system. It is also not uncommon for a patient to lose their teeth or lose control of their body due to the damage done to their nerves as a result of using mercury as a treatment.

Lobotomy is a method of psychosurgery that involves altering a person’s disruptive thought patterns (related to their illness) by damaging connections in the brain’s frontal lobes. It was widely performed throughout the mid-20th century. It was considered a new ‘breakthrough’ technique. There were many advertising and marketing campaigns to promote the widespread use of lobotomy surgeries. However, this unique new process did not come without side effects. A lot of people experienced large, debilitating cognitive decline. There were additional cases of extreme personality shifts and emotional numbness. The perceived ‘calming’ of disruptive thought patterns after practicing lobotomies was considered a small consolation. Nowadays, due to a better understanding of brain function and structure, lobotomies are not ethically practiced.

Rare was the time in the early 1900s when you would not hear claims of radium as a miracle health cure of some sort. There were all manner of “health tonics” and even “radioactive” water for sale. The wealthy elite would sip tonics daily and would be completely unaware of how dangerous the radiation was. One infamous product, Radithor, caused users to suffer a slow and terribly painful death from bone cancer. Radiation exposure was not well understood, and many thought of the new scientific development with a positive and beneficent view. It was this kind of scandal that closed the doors for good on these health products and opened the door to more government regulations.

Before realizing its drawbacks, some prescribers saw tobacco as a remedy for asthma, headaches, and even infections. Smoke and other tobacco concoctions were believed to help purify the body and stimulate the body’s natural healing. These concoctions were put into inhalers and even tobacco-powered enemas! The immediate opening of the airways via the irritation was short-lived, as the long-term use of tobacco resulted in addiction, pulmonary damage, and illness. Although questionable logic was used to justify the former, tobacco ultimately became one of the most researched and studied causes of cancer and heart disease.

Trepanation involves drilling or scraping a hole in the skull. Ancient cultures believed it could release evil spirits or relieve pressure from illness or head injury. Surprisingly, some patients survived and healed, but many did not due to infection or trauma. Without anesthesia or sterilization, it was extremely dangerous. Though largely abandoned, early forms influenced modern neurosurgery, which now uses controlled techniques for treating brain pressure and injuries safely and scientifically.

Anemia, syphilis, and beauty could benefit from medicines and cosmetics containing arsenic. It was believed that a small amount could enhance the body and improve one’s complexion. However, arsenic is poisonous when consumed, and it impairs the body. Nerve damage, cancer, and organ failure are all long-term effects of the slow-acting poison. Almost no one recognized the dangerous side effects of consuming it. Arsenic was used less frequently as safer drugs arrived and the long-term harm became undeniable.

Gold salts were the primary rheumatoid arthritis treatment for many physicians during the 20th century. The treatment reduced inflammation, so many thought gold salts were a good treatment until new medications came out. Gold salts had many terrible side effects. They caused skin rashes, damage to the kidneys, ulcers in the mouth, and blood disorders. New and more effective medicine was developed which made gold salts largely obsolete. Gold salts were an example of how physicians would accept many side effects of treatments when they were limited.

Early psychiatrists thought dizzying rotating chairs would calm agitation and rebalance the body or reset the brain. Agitated patients were “treated” by strapping them into the rotating chairs and causing them to spin. This was believed to calm mental illness, but it actually caused nauseating distress rather than any healing benefit.

For many years, lead was thought to have calming effects, so it was used in salves, makeup, and medicine. Unfortunately, lead is highly poisonous and builds up in a person’s system. People then begin to show signs of chronic lead poisoning, including pain in the abdomen, anemia, and a decrease in mental capacity. Since these symptoms had a gradual onset, the relationship between the poisoning and the symptoms was not obvious to everyone. This is a good example of how substances can be used in medicine for a long time without a complete understanding of the inherent long-term risks.

Ultraviolet blood irradiation combined blood collection with blood irradiation using UV light, and blood reinfusion. It was thought that UV light could help eliminate pathogens from the blood. It could be beneficial for chronic and systemic infections. However, the process itself risked contamination and could damage blood cells, undermining its intended benefit. The UV light could be useful for blood sterilization outside of the body, but internally, it was ineffective.

Electric beauty masks offered promise from the start as a skin care tool for firmer and younger-looking skin. What helped kickstart their popularity was the delivery of mild electrical stimuli around the face to purportedly enhance circulation and tone the face. There was no long-term tightening provided as the masks offered little results from a cosmetic standpoint. The masks also posed a safety threat, as they delivered inconsistent electrical charges. The start of the trend came from an early excitement with electricity as a means of healing, despite there being no proven science to support the claims.

Organotherapy included using animal glands or extracts to treat problematic organs in humans. Those in support of this practice thought that it was possible to restore function directly with the substance of the organ, and they were supported by early theories on hormones. With the notable exception of thyroid extract, the practice was not effective and, furthermore, it was unsafe. Purified hormones that can be used for therapies are the standard in prescriptive modern medicine, and these are controlled scientifically and act with much more reliability.

Suppositories of radium were sold in the 20th century as energy boosters. These became infamous for the early medical misuse of nuclear materials. Radium suppositories contained radioactive material and were sold as rejuvenating. Users were exposed to dangerous levels. The damage to tissue was beyond severe, and cancer became a likely diagnosis. These products were sold before the risks of radioactivity were fully understood; some people died from it.

Ethanol would be injected to destroy nerve pathways to curb chronic pain. While this would reduce nerve pain for a while, it would cause permanent damage. Patients would experience complications and even more pain at times. While this shows the early methods of pain treatment, due to the destructive nature of the treatment, this method isn’t used much anymore.

Among the various experimental procedures performed by early psychiatrists to treat patients was one that included altering the patients’ oxygen levels, including reducing the oxygen to which patients were exposed, which was believed to alter and help treat the patients’ moods and/or deviant behaviors. These procedures were extremely primitive, unsafe, and were performed without any accurate science to support them. The treated patients suffered excessive pain and, in many instances, exhibited even more aggressive and deviant behavior and symptoms. It is important to note that while oxygen therapy is used safely and beneficially in modern medicine, early experimenters practiced it without proper safety or scientific understanding, and their patients were harmed as a result.

The late 1950s and early 1960s were dominated by the use of thalidomide for treating morning sickness, anxiety, and insomnia in pregnant women. The drug was seen as harmless, as it was considered difficult to take too much. The medical community soon found the sad reality of this drug: it caused severe birth defects. The babies were born with malformed limbs and even other serious abnormalities. The horrific events resulted in major transformations in the drug approval processes and the tests conducted prior. New drugs are more rigorously evaluated to improve their safety and the welfare of the consumers.

In the history of treating schizophrenia and psychosis, therapy involving insulin comas became a popular form of treatment. In this therapy, doctors would inject large amounts of insulin with the intent of putting the patient into a coma. One of the common beliefs of doctors was that inducing a coma multiple times would lead to a great improvement in the patients’ mental symptoms. Although a small number of patients did show signs of improvement, the treatment was proven to be ineffective and even harmful. Several patients even suffered from long-term brain damage as a result of the coma. Some patients died from the therapy, resulting in doctors abandoning the practice and looking for other solutions to treat psychosis.

Researchers observing adverse effects from exposure to mustard gas during WWII discovered that white blood cells were irreparably harmed. Mustard gas and its derivatives were of interest to researchers developing treatments for blood cancers and lymphomas. This illustrates the genesis of modern chemotherapy. Chemicals have the ability to disrupt cancer cells, and unlike most historical treatments, this discipline has been improved to become effective and life-saving.

At the beginning of the 20th century, some physicians thought they could treat a variety of illnesses, such as arthritis and infections, by artificially elevating the body temperature of their patients. To achieve this, they confined their patients inside devices that were designed to make the patients sweat and induce high body temperatures, or ‘fever’. Even though inducing a natural fever can help in fighting an infection, these treatments usually end in dehydration, heat exhaustion, and a plethora of other illnesses. As the medical world advanced and antibiotics were discovered, fever cabinets rapidly disappeared.