9 Everyday Inventions That Caused Widespread Panic

9. Trains Can Cause The Uterus To Fly Clean Out

Despite the fact that, at the time rail travel became popular, the next best option for the average person was to sit on the back of a large, powerful and stupid animal and hope it did what you told it to, people feared that travelling at the incredible speeds (anything up to a whopping 30 mph) of a steam train would do horrible, irreparable damage to the human body.

An 1861 inquiry in The Lancet linked train travel with miscarriages, believing that the motion of the train was practically shaking the baby out of women's uteri, and warned about "the danger of excessive railway travelling to newly married women". The same report also found a link with brain damage, and that a man whose "brain congestion", which had previously been cured by "24 leeches to the temples", had returned after a train ride.

Thankfully, this turned out to be hogwash, and we can all enjoy our stuffy, overcrowded train journeys with uterus firmly in place.