Health
Victorian Doctors Prescribed Heroin for Coughs and Cocaine for Toothaches
In the late Victorian era, Bayer marketed heroin as a safe cough remedy and dentists routinely prescribed cocaine for toothaches — not as fringe quackery, but as cutting-edge mainstream medicine trusted by…
WWI Commanders Blamed Soldiers for Trench Foot as Thousands Lost Their Feet
By winter 1914, tens of thousands of Allied soldiers were losing their feet to trench foot — a condition their…
Georgian Surgeons Raced the Clock While Crowds Bet on Who Would Survive
In 18th century London, surgical theatres packed paying spectators who timed surgeons' amputations and placed wagers on patients' survival —…
Bearberry: The Indigenous Survival Medicine Used for 1,000 Years
Known to settlers as hogberry, bearberry was already a sophisticated Indigenous medicine used by the Ojibwe, Blackfoot, Cree, and Navajo…
12 Landmark Events in Global Health That Altered the Course of Medicine
Throughout history, certain pivotal moments in global health have forever changed the way humanity understands and practices medicine. These events…
When Opium Was a Cure-All Remedy, and Other Unusual Historic Medical Cures
Tobacco was once believed to be a cure-all remedy for just about every ailment. And sniffing farts was thought to…
History’s Most Bizarre Medical Practices That Somehow Worked
Your great-grandmother might have sworn by cocaine tooth drops while ancient healers drilled holes in skulls to cure headaches. These…
The Black Death and Justinian’s Plague: History’s Worst Pestilences
Conventional wisdom has it that the medieval era’s Black Death was history’s worst plague. However, it might have been rivaled…
Living Hell: New York’s Tenements were Nightmares in the Early 1900s
The masses of immigrants coming to America and settling in New York in the 1800s needed cheap housing. New York’s…
Facts About Ancient Egypt They Didn’t Teach In School
The Egyptian civilization of the pharaohs lasted for an incredibly long time – more than three thousand years. To put…