These 15 Vintage Medical Photos Will Make You Glad You’re Not Living In The 1800s.
Sometimes it seems like life today can be pretty hard. There are bills to pay, the Internet is slow, and there’s never anything good on TV. But every now and then, we’re reminded that, all things considered, life in the present is actually pretty darn good.
Back in the 1800s, the human body was still largely a mystery. Modern medicine was beginning to take shape, but compared to what we know today, doctors were remarkably uninformed. This led to some very strange medical practices to say the least.
1. Ah, the days when all you got before surgery was a little ether.
2. Mental institutions bizarrely used to wrap patients in wet sheets to subdue them.
3. Radioactive water – it’s good for what ails you.
4. Physiotherapy has really come a long way.
5. As have prosthetic limbs.
6. I’m really glad radiology nurses don’t dress like this anymore.
7. That’s a defibrillator, not an old-timey radio.
8. This wheelchair looks… uncomfortable.
9. This infant rickets treatment looks more like something from a mad scientist’s dream.
10. Back when many doctors weren’t allowed to touch women, they had to use these anatomical models to describe their symptoms.
11.
Did you know you can make a blood transfusion machine from an old soda bottle?
12. I can see why most people would rather give birth at home than go to a hospital to use this “birthing chair.”
13. I think I’d rather just have a peg leg.
14.
I’m no doctor but this seems like the wrong way to treat scoliosis. Could they sue for malpractice back then?
15. Having back problems? Just hop into one of these little numbers.
Yikes! There is nothing I dread more than going to the doctor, but after seeing these photos it suddenly doesn’t seem so bad anymore. At least they’re not going to force me to drink radioactive water. I just wonder what our medical practices will look like to people living 200 years from now.
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