Remedies from the Nightmarish Annals of Medical History
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From the sun ray to the skin tube, these haunting vintage medical treatments actually inspired techniques still in use today. The history of medicine is overflowing with bizarre remedies and curious cures (cocaine for congestion, anyone?). However, many of the strange solutions of yesteryear actually paved the way for modern medical treatments in use today.
The healing power of the sun has been recognised and appreciated since Incas were engineering aqueducts and the ancient Greeks were pondering existence. But it was only when Faroese-Danish physician Niels Finsen discovered that light radiation can help treat lupus vulgaris in the 1890s that modern phototherapy was born.
The technology took off, and for much of the first half of the twentieth century … continue reading.