Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • - Hey!

  • I'm Dr. Matt, and I've got the perfect cure

  • for that headache, backache, toothache,

  • heartache, handshake, corn flake, tummyache.

  • It's called meth! (laughs nervously)

  • Ride the snake!

  • All right, well, obviously I'm not a doctor,

  • and prescribing that sounds nuts.

  • But, there have been some insane treatments

  • prescribed by medical experts who,

  • arguably, didn't know better.

  • And what's really disturbing is that these were all commonly used in the past.

  • If a physician used any of the methods

  • you're going to hear about today, they'd be in jail.

  • So, what exactly are they?

  • Here are 10 banned medical practices

  • you won't believe existed.

  • Number one is Mercury.

  • It definitely sounds crazy, but there was a time

  • when people thought that the best way to treat syphilis was to ingest Mercury.

  • Side effects included losing your teeth,

  • damage to internal organs, or simply death.

  • Using Mercury as a cure began as early

  • as 1500 B.C. in Egypt, and was believed

  • to cure ailments, heal wounds, and even prolong life.

  • (laughs)

  • It turned out to be the exact opposite.

  • They also used to use Mercury ointments, pills,

  • and lotions to treat all sorts of ailments,

  • attributing the side-effects and deaths to the underlying condition the patient already had.

  • Nowadays, we're weary about Mercury in fish.

  • Back then, they were drinkin' it like it was an ale.

  • Ah, gimmie some Mercury!

  • Yeah, I feel great! (groans)

  • Number two is radioactive water.

  • It's hard to believe, but in the early 1900s,

  • Radium was all the rage.

  • Today we know that exposure to Radium causes cancer,

  • but back then it was used as a cure for mental illness,

  • diarrhea, malaria, and was even thought to prevent aging

  • due to increased cell activity.

  • And what better way to get this stuff into consumers' bodies than to sell it as bottled water?

  • That's right, Radium-infused water could be purchased in many stores

  • alongside Radium-infused chocolate, radioactive toothpaste, and,

  • why not, radioactive suppositories.

  • Up and at 'em.

  • (grunts)

  • Number three is whirling chairs.

  • Between 1850 and 1900, in an attempt to stop the practice of restraining the mentally ill

  • and locking them in dark cells, yes, that actually happened,

  • doctors turned to a method they genuinely thought could help:

  • Strapping patients into a chair and spinning them until they lost consciousness.

  • Yep.

  • That'll get the voices to stop.

  • They used a simple chair with a lever system to spin the person around.

  • The belief was that this would shuffle

  • the contents of the patient's brain around,

  • knocking out conditions like schizophrenia.

  • Used alongside other unbelievable practices like high-dose laxatives, insulin comas,

  • and ice-water baths, it took far too long for doctors to learn that this really wasn't working.

  • Just made a whole lot of vomit...

  • Just...just...buckets.

  • Buckets of vomit.

  • Number four is the lobotomy.

  • Often declared as one of the most barbaric mistakes ever perpetrated by main-stream medicine,

  • lobotomies involved driving a large ice pick into a patient's head.

  • Follow me on this.

  • Entering through the eye socket,

  • the spike was pressed into the prefrontal cortex of the brain,

  • and then struck with a hammer.

  • Doctors truly believed that whatever the outcome,

  • the patient would still be better off than they were pre-lobotomy.

  • Side effects included severe brain damage,

  • or even death, which was the case with

  • John F. Kennedy's sister who, after a lobotomy

  • was reduced mentally to an infant, and never recovered.

  • How...how did they ever think that driving an ice pick

  • through the eye into the brain was ever a good idea?

  • Just...

  • It's scary stuff.

  • Number five is the electrical impotence cure.

  • By the 1900s, everybody and their brother had a miracle cure for anything.

  • And disturbingly, many of them were for male...

  • (clears throat) issues....

  • Down there...

  • Wit' ya dick.

  • Anywho, as fascination with electricity was on the rise,

  • medical practitioners turned to it to solve impotence.

  • By shocking the hell out of a man's...

  • package.

  • It was widely believed that a shock provided energy

  • to a man's body which he could use to...

  • rise to the occasion.

  • Of course, what they didn't tell you,

  • until after they were paid, was that

  • not only was there no real science involved in it,

  • but it was incredibly painful!

  • Dudes these days be buyin' these online enhancement pills,

  • and all they really needed was a car battery and some jumper cables.

  • Science!

  • Number six is trepanning.

  • The twisted cousin of lobotomy,

  • trepanning was used for many years

  • and it involved drilling into a mentally ill patient's head.

  • As one of the oldest methods of treatment,

  • trepanning dates all the way back to 6500 B.C. in France,

  • and consisted of drilling burr holes

  • into a patient's skull to let the evil spirits out.

  • (groans)

  • The mentally ill were often mistaken to be possessed

  • by demons, and, as we all know,

  • the only way to get a demon out of your head

  • is to make a little hole for it to get out of.

  • Long after science recognized mental illness, however,

  • trepanning was still used when all other treatments failed,

  • as doctors just drilled a few holes to see what happens.

  • Uh, science, doctors, if I ever become ill,

  • please, don't treat my head like a bowling ball.

  • If there's demons in there, you just let 'em chill.

  • Just let 'em chill.

  • I don't want no holes, okay?

  • Just let 'em chill.

  • Still livin' and then I'll die.

  • I'll die, that's cool, I just...

  • I don't wanna be a Matthew Santoro bowling ball.

  • That's...

  • That's disturbing.

  • Number seven is bloodletting.

  • A treatment used for over 2,000 years until the late 1800s,

  • bloodletting was the act of draining blood from the body.

  • Now, while this is still done in a way today,

  • it's nothing like it used to be.

  • Many doctors used to believe that

  • blood would pool in certain places,

  • and that was why people got sick.

  • Vast quantities of it would be drained from the body for ridiculous reasons like a stuffy nose,

  • or even a headache.

  • Obviously, this caused many deaths,

  • but, once again, practitioners just chalked up loss of life to the illness itself,

  • or, state of mind of the patient.

  • Fun fact:

  • Barbers were the most common blood-letters,

  • and that's the reason they use red and white poles.

  • Disturbing, I know.

  • Think about that next time you walk by a barber.

  • Nightmares for days.

  • Number eight is urine therapy.

  • Urine therapy was the practice of using one's own pee to cure them of ailments.

  • Sometimes, it would be the patient's own urine,

  • but other times it was a healthy person's.

  • Or even the doctor's.

  • How generous.

  • It was thought that by drinking urine, or applying it around affected areas,

  • it could help heal broken bones,

  • clear up strep throat, cure acne, or even whiten teeth.

  • (laughs)

  • Don't get any ideas.

  • Though technically debunked, there are some people

  • still in the world that claim to gain the benefits from this truly bizarre form of therapy.

  • So, careful where you go in the world,

  • because that's...that lemonade...

  • may not be lemonade.

  • Number nine is Ms. Winslow's soothing syrup.

  • Hey, want a quick way to stop your child from throwing a temper-tantrum?

  • Well, don't worry, with Ms. Winslow's soothing syrup,

  • they'll be calm and cool,

  • and halfway to a coma in no time!

  • Sold in the early 1900s as a remedy

  • for children with ailments such as cold,

  • fever, rambunctiousness, or even if a parent just wanted to catch a quick nap,

  • Ms. Winslow's remedy was fast-acting

  • mostly because it contained heroin,

  • cannabis, powdered opium, morphine,

  • and an insane slew of other substances.

  • The cocktail proved deadly to those children

  • who didn't mellow out, and, to top it off,

  • it was marketed to parents of babies who were teething,

  • and thus, always crying.

  • Mom and Dad can finally relax by putting your child to sleep...

  • forever.

  • That was a scary time to be alive, medical science.

  • And, number 10, the tobacco enema.

  • Let me just say, first of all, that all the remedies

  • you heard of today are 100% true.

  • I am not blowing smoke up your ass.

  • Although, if you lived in the 1700s and

  • needed emergency, life-saving treatment,

  • that's exactly what they'd do.

  • It was actually believed that tobacco smoke

  • could warm up a person's body just before or immediately after death,

  • and could jump-start the respiratory system.

  • Of course, the best place to jump-start the lungs and the heart is through the butt!

  • Using rubber rectal tubes.

  • Doctors claimed that this practice

  • would combat hernias, typhoid fever,

  • and even headaches.

  • And then, in 1811, it was discovered

  • that this is really doing just way more damage

  • than helping, and tobacco enemas were discontinued.

  • I think the moral of the story here, friends,

  • is just don't try to smoke with ya butt.

  • Don't smoke with your butt.

  • Leave the anus...

  • Don't smoke with your butt.

  • Yes.

  • It's a helpful tip.

  • You're welcome!

  • And those were 10 banned medical practices

  • that actually existed.

  • Thank you guys, so much, for watching this episode.

  • I really hope you enjoyed it.

  • If you have a recommendation for a topic

  • of a top ten, please leave a comment below,

  • and I'll be reading through your comments.

  • Remember to click that red subscribe button

  • to be notified of my future videos on this channel.

  • On the right, you'll find an annotation to my last video,

  • as well as an annotation to get some merch

  • if you feel like pickin' up some cool shirts.

  • As well, you'll also find an annotation

  • to my second channel, where I make vlogs, unboxings,

  • and much more, so be sure to subscribe to that,

  • and I will see all of you next time

  • with a brand...new...video.

- Hey!

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it