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Dark Medicine

The horrifying truth of historical healing

4 stories

Walter Freeman's Ice Pick Lobotomy: 3,000 Brain Operations With No Surgical Training

Walter Freeman performed 3,500 brain operations with an ice pick and a portable shock machine — with no surgical training — working out of his car.

lobotomyneurologypsychiatrymedical-history

Victorian★ 8.2

Dr. Kellogg's Sanitarium: Enemas, Electrical Eyeball Treatments, and the Chewing Song

Dr. Kellogg gave guests multiple daily enemas, led them in a chewing song at mealtimes, and applied electrical current directly to their eyeballs as a vision treatment.

medicinequackerysanitariumhealth

Victorian★ 8.1

The Resurrection Men: Britain's Body-Snatching Industry That Supplied Medical Schools

Britain's medical schools were supplied for decades by professional grave robbers who dug up the freshly buried at night — the corpse had no legal standing as stolen property.

grave-robbinganatomymedicinecrime

Medieval★ 8.1

Medieval Plague Doctors: Useless Cures, Dead Chickens, and Drinking Urine

Medieval plague doctors treated the Black Death with live chickens strapped to tumors, drinks of ground emeralds and mercury, and poultices of human excrement.

plaguemedicinemedievalblack-death

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