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Absurd Medical Practices of the Past
Doctors once drained your blood to cure a fever, drilled holes in your skull and prescribed powdered mummy for your wounds. In this episode of The Absurdists, with Mary Murphy traveling, Marlo Anderson is joined by guest Justin Cancilliere to dig through the most absurd medical practices of the past.
It starts with bloodletting (even at the dentist), trepanation, mercury, mummy powder, Spanish fly blistering to release bad “humors” and milk transfusions. Then there’s the Australian “whale hotel,” where rheumatism sufferers lay inside a decomposing whale, electric belts that promised to cure baldness, and Marlo’s own run-in with a laser hair cap.
From there it’s cocaine toothache drops, Coca-Cola’s original recipe, heroin cough syrup, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup (morphine for babies), asthma cigarettes, chloroform, strychnine tonics (hello, chaotic 1904 Olympic marathon), arsenic tonic, tapeworm diet pills, radium water, phrenology, monkey gland rejuvenation, malaria therapy, insulin comas, lobotomies and the whirling chair. Plus Justin’s pick: how doctors “treated” hysteria. (Reminder: neither of them is a doctor.)
The Absurdists, where logic takes a back seat. Season 2, Episode 9 with Marlo Anderson and guest Justin Cancilliere.
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