← Back to the front page

When Opium Was a Cure-All Remedy, and Other Unusual Historic Medical Cures

Khalid Elhassan April 10, 2025 16 min

Remedy - Flagellants thought that flogging themselves would ward off the plague — Flagellants thought that flogging themselves would ward off the plague. Pits Perilous

3. Faith in the Tobacco Smoke Remedy Was Widespread

Remedy - Preparation for a tobacco smoke enema — Preparation for a tobacco smoke enema. Imgur

The smoke remedy made intuitive sense: a drowned person was full of water, so blowing air, in the form of tobacco smoke which was full of healing properties, would both expel the water and heal the victim. One hiccup with trying to save drowning victims by blowing smoke up their rear was that the water was in the drowned person’s lungs, which are not connected to the rear end. Thus, blowing smoke up drowning victims’ butts and into their bowels would do little to expel water from their lungs. Although some doctors preferred to stick the tube directly into the lungs through the mouth or nose, most preferred to shove it up the patient’s behind, instead. Although medically useless, belief in the efficacy of tobacco smoke enemas in reviving drowning victims, or even those presumed dead, was widespread.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.