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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

1. A Remedy Worse Than the Disease

Remedy - A doctor blows smoke up a patient's butt. Interesly — A doctor blows smoke up a patient’s butt

While the smoke-up-the-butt remedy was useless for the patient, it could be quite dangerous for the medical practitioner. Especially if he blew the smoke with his mouth instead of use a bellows. Should the doctor inhale instead of exhale, or if gases in the patient’s bowels escaped (i.e.; if the patient farted) fecal particles could get blown back into the doctor’s mouth or inhaled into his lungs. Such a mishap, particularly when treating a cholera patient, could prove fatal for the doctor.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

All That is Interesting – The Strange, Surprising History of the Vibrator

Daily Beast, April 27^th, 2012 – ‘Hysteria’ and the Long, Strange History of the Vibrator

Eyewitness to History – The Flagellants Attempt to Repel the Black Death, 1349

Gizmodo – “Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass” Used to be Literal

Haviland, David – Why You Should Store Your Farts in a Jar & Other Oddball or Gross Maladies, Afflictions, Remedies, and “Cures” (2010)

Haynes, Sterling MD, British Columbia Medical Journal, December 2012 – Special Feature: Tobacco Smoke Enemas

History Collection – We Are Still Learning Weird Things About Ancient Sparta

History Learning Site – Cures For the Black Death

Kamienski, Lukasz – Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War (2016)

Listverse – 10 Crazy Cures For the Black Death

Mental Floss – The Fart Jars of 17^th-Century Europe

Providentia – Soldier’s Disease

World History Encyclopedia – Medieval Cures for the Black Death

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.