8 Seriously Bizarre Scientific Theories From History
1. The Treatment Of King Charles II
One day, King Charles II woke up feeling a bit peaky, so he sent for a doctor.
This was his first mistake (and, actually, his last).
In order to keep him ticking over until the proper doctors arrived, the royal barber took the initiative and took a pint of the king's royal blood. The doctors then showed up and took another eight ounces.
This was just a warm up, however, as poor Charlie was then made to swallow antimony, a highly toxic metal and then, to and insult to considerable injury, given a load of enemas.
His head was then shaved and purposefully blistered, whilst somebody else smeared pigeon droppings and burgundy pitch onto his feet. After that he was given white sugar (yay!) and then jabbed repeatedly with a red hot poker (oh).
For their final trick, the doctors gave him some extract from "the skull of a man that was never buried" and finally the stone from the stomach of a goat called a bezoar.
Charles, rather unsurprisingly, died.
It's worth remembering that this was cutting edge medicine at the time. The doctors weren't sadists, they genuinely believed that this stuff would work, despite the fact that now it seems woefully obvious it wouldn't.
Who knows, perhaps one day we'll look back on treatments such as chemotherapy with the same mixture of horror and disdain.
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