Strange medical practices fascinate me. Not only are most absolutely ridiculous, but also knowing that many were in wide use at some point is just mind blowing. To see that such crazy assed shit was considered the de facto way to cure illnesses at one point is almost frightening. Medicine is an evolving art, and nowhere do you get more appreciation for that than by taking a look into the past, which is exactly what we’re gonna do today.

Below are a few practices and experiments that the medical community has tried, and ultimately failed with. None of these ideas were ever good (even at the time), but at least it shows there are more than a few Doctors willing to go all mad scientist on our asses to help the future.

So let’s do some learnin’!

Tobacco Smoke Enema

Imagine this sticking out of your ass. Welcome to the exciting world of tobacco enemas!

Things not quite working down there? Feeling a little…backed up? Well you know, there are a ton of things you could use these days to help get things moving, but back in the 1800s you probably weren’t so lucky. In fact, one of the most widely used methods to deal with a large swath of medical problems back then were treated with a Tobacco smoke enema. Yes, a tobacco smoke enema.

So what does a tobacco smoke enema entail? Probably exactly what you imagine it being. Remember that one time you got drunk at a party and your friend convinced you to let him deflate a balloon in your ass to see what would happen? It’s pretty much that. Just minus the trip to the hospital, since technically you would already be there back then when you began to vomit and grasp at your body in terrifying, crippling pain.

The tobacco enema was used to treat a decent amount of illnesses, as it was considered to be a modern day miracle worker. No ailment was too much for a tobacco smoke enema. Even impending death:

To physicians of the time, the appropriate treatment for “apparent death” was warmth and stimulation. For this purpose,artificial respiration and the blowing of smoke into the lungs or the rectum were thought to be interchangeably useful. The smoke enema was considered the most potent method, however, due to the warming and stimulating properties associated with tobacco in the pharmacopoeia of the period.

Ah, the good old days.

As time went on though, people quickly learned that maybe blowing tobacco smoke into one’s ass was probably a bad idea, since tobacco smoke contained nicotine, which is essentially cardiac poisoning, and would basically stop your blood from flowing. Fortunately, once people figured that small detail out, tobacco enemas were largely stopped being used by modern doctors. Our loss entirely.

Seizure therapy

The idea of doing really bad things to people who already have bad things wrong with them in the hope of improving the patient is a running theme here, and it only gets crazier from this point. People with schizophrenia have always been an odd case for medicine, as schizophrenia is an exact science. No one can really pin down something and say “Yep, that’s schizophrenia, take care of that” with any sort of certainty in what to do. Things were even worse back in the early 1900s, and one Doctor took it upon himself to cure this strange mental disease. His idea? Induced Seizure.

The idea was simple. Well, maybe not, as it really didn’t make much sense even then, but the good Doctor had an idea, and modern science be damned if it stood in his way. The Doctor discovered that Camphor dissolved in oil would cause full body seizures in both animals and humans, so off he went to find some test subjects, all of which were diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The results? Well, to his credit he had about a 50% success rate with his patients improving dramatically. Though I wonder just how many after being sent into an involuntary seizure didn’t suddenly proclaim they were cured just to keep having it done to them again. That other 50% though…not so great.

What happens when you have a seizure? Your body loses control, and you basically start flailing and all sorts of craziness. Also, crazy shit happens to your brain (thus, the whole idea this could cure schizos). So many patients simply found the side effects of an induced seizure to be broken bones, memory loss, and brain damage. Not exactly a slight downside there. The practice was discontinued shortly after.

Seizure therapy is still practiced today, but in a much safer way. Called Magnetic Seizure Therapy, instead of a full body seizure, Magnetic Seizure Therapy stimulates portions of the brain using, yep, magnets. It’s far safer, and far less likely you’ll uncontrollably flail yourself out of a nearby window. Just goes to show that not all early failures are without their merits.

Malaria Therapy, or: Malariotherapy

Not only does Malaria have terrifying effects, but it also looks just as horrible.

You know what sucks about Malaria? Just about everything. Not only will it cause terrible chills, horrible bouts of lightheadedness, and even death, BUT it’s also quite good at generally not being able to be cured, as no vaccine currently exists to treat it. So yeah, sounds awesome doesn’t it? Certainly the thing you would want to treat other diseases – like say, AIDS – with, right? Of course!

In 2004, someone got the bright idea that maybe, JUST MAYBE, if you infected a person that had one horrible incurable disease, and gave them ANOTHER incurable disease, they would magically be better.

Guess what didn’t happen.

In fact, the only thing that happened was exactly what you’d think would happen: The patient was now thoroughly fucked. I don’t really know how I’d respond if I were that Doctor…

Doctor:  So…you know that whole AIDS thing you have, right?
Patient: Yes.
Doctor: Well…we kinda thought maybe you’d get better if we…infected you with Malaria
Patient: …
Doctor: It didn’t work.
Patient:  So now I have AIDS and Malaria
Doctor: Congratulations?

It’s not too surprising to learn that the practice was quickly stopped, as once anyone with a brain discovered this was going on, they let out a stern “What the FUCK” and ended the program once and for all.

On a related note, this wasn’t the first time Malaria was used to treat a disease. In the late 1800s, there was virtually no way of treating STDs, so in comes Malaria, which would successfully push back symptoms of Syphilis. Just, you know, at the cost of having Malaria. Honestly, I think I’d rather say I have Malaria than Syphilis any day.

Insulin Coma Therapy

Got a terrible drug addiction you can’t just seem to get rid of? Is your hourly binge on cocaine and meth just taking too much out of you? Well have I got a solution for you. An amazing solution that actually works. Just as long as you don’t mind the one major side effect of dying. Hey, gotta take the pluses with the minuses, right?

If you don't need this, then you probably shouldn't use it.

So you should know what insulin is. Basically diabetics use it to stabalize their blood sugar levels. Well, way back in 1927, a doctor accidentally overdosed a patient with insulin, sending her into a coma. I’m sure the Doctor felt he was fucked beyond belief, but thankfully the patient woke up. Upon waking, the patient noticed something very strange; her morphine addiction was gone. The Doctor was rightfully astounded. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that putting this woman into an inulin-injected coma reset her body. Needless to say, the proverbial lightbulb went off.

A while later, the Doctor “accidentally” put another patient who just happened to have a drug addiction into a coma via insulin, and what do you know, the patient had no want at all for drugs afterward. The Doctor, thinking he had a sure fire winner going on, even tried his method on schizophrenics and had a 90% success rate of curing them. Astounding! A Miracle!

Well, not quite.

See, while the Doctor’s success rates were in the 80-90% success range, that other 30% that wasn’t successful…well, they didn’t just get to wake up and go home. In fact, they didn’t wake up. They died. And any Doctor will tell you that when your lone side effect is a 20% chance you’ll die, then that just doesn’t fly. And so the practice was halted, and nothing more was ever done with it.

Hopefully today you have a new appreciation that you don’t have to undergo any of the things mentioned above. We’re all in a great time period to be alive, as even just 60 years ago medicine wasn’t exactly a science. Homemade cures and crazy concoctions were all thrown around with wild abandon. At least now, anything used on us generally does not have the side effect of us dying a horrible death. I guess we can all thank the brave folk from the past who helped that along.

Even if they were insane.