Page 178 - (DK) Danger! Open with Extreme Caution!

MEDICAL HORRORS

Welcome to the House of Horrors,
where each room contains
a scene of surgical ghastliness.
Before pain-numbing
anesthetics arrived in
the 19th century, any
procedure that involved
cutting into the body was
painful and was carried out
as rapidly as possible. Even
in the 20th century,
gruesome but useless
procedures such as
ice-pick lobotomies 1
were still happening.

THIS IS
1 Hole in the head GIVING ME A
HEADACHE!
Need relief from a bad migraine
or a feeling of depression? Then
try a procedure that dates
back to the Stone Age.
Trepanation involves
using a flint tool to HA! HA! THIS
make a circular hole WIlL COST
YOU AN ARM
in the skull bone AND A LEG!
that exposes the
brain and allows the
“demons” causing
the problem
to escape.

2 Amputation
Saw at the ready, his patient
strapped in place, this surgeon is
poised to cut off the diseased arm. The 2
operation will be painful, but he should be
able to amputate the arm in under a minute.
If blood loss isn’t great, and the wound doesn’t
become infected, his patient may survive.

3 New teeth

The man in the chair has horrible tooth decay, the result
of eating refined sugar, a new product in the 18th century. 4 Bloodletting
His dentist removes rotten teeth and replaces them with
This unfortunate woman is being bled by a surgeon. Why?
“new” ones taken from executed criminals or dead paupers.
These transplants won’t last and may also carry disease. It was once believed that certain ailments were the result
of having an “excess” of blood in the body. The remedy
was bloodletting—cutting into a vein with a sharp knife
and allowing the “excess” to flow out.
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