2. Stinky Pregnancy Test
Okay, this one's not so much horrific as hilarious. For some reason "wait and see if a baby grows" is just not good enough for us humans, so we've been looking for a way to accurately detect pregnancy for thousands of years. Hippocrates, largely considered to the the father of modern medicine and namesake for the Hippocratic oath, had a theory that, if it weren't so gross, would actually be kinda sweet. Old Hippocrates reckoned that you could detect pregnancy by inserting an onion into the woman's vagina and leaving it there overnight. If her breath smelt like onions the next day then she wasn't pregnant. The idea was that if there was a baby all up in there, it would block the smell of onions, but if not then the smell would waft through the woman like some kind of oniony wind tunnel. Presumably, you could achieve a similar effect by holding her up to a light and seeing if it shines all the way through. This is obviously not medically sound, for the love of god invest in a proper pregnancy test.