If you thought your last filling hurt, just thank your lucky stars that you're living this side of the 21st century. We generally regard doctors as the people who make us feel better, but back in The Olden Days, a trip to the local doc's office could leave you feeling much, much worse than you did before. This was largely down to a lack of knowledge, unsophisticated techniques and (apparently) a love of sharp objects. History is littered with then- legitimate medical procedures that would be more at home in a horror movie these days and yet, in their day, they were considered the cutting edge of medical science. It does rather make you wonder whether people in the year 3000 will think of our modern techniques. Perhaps they'll recoil in horror at the thought of having an organ from another human transplanted inside of them, or think that stitches are laughably quaint. Then again, that stuff is nothing compared to the butchery of what came before us.
