Medicine

Stories filed under Medicine in the Weird Science History archive — 55 stories from the strange edge of science.

• George Washington's Wooden Teeth — Which Were Never Made of Wood
• The Armadillo Pitched as a Leprosy Lab — and the Researchers Who Laughed Until It Worked
• The Baby Swab Once Sold as 'Baby Gays' — Whose Box Now Begs You to Keep It Out of Your Ear
• The Brandy Barrel St. Bernards Never Carried — and Why It Would Have Made Things Worse
• The Bread Preacher Behind the Graham Cracker — and the Bakers Who Came to Mob Him
• The Cold Researchers Who Stood Volunteers in a Drafty Hallway in Wet Swimsuits — and Got Two Opposite Answers
• The Misplaced Decimal Point That Made Spinach Famous — and Never Existed
• The Dog That Kept Trying to Bite Off Its Owner's Mole — and Turned Out to Be Right
• The 'Electric' Hairbrush With No Electricity in It — and the Tiny Compass Packed In to Prove It Worked
• The Founding Father's Laxative That Found Lewis and Clark's Toilet
• The Navy That Swapped Lemons for Limes — and Forgot How to Cure Scurvy
• The Navy Tried Everything to Give 100 Sailors the Flu — and Not One Got Sick
• The Pigeons Trained to Spot Breast Cancer — and the Flock That Got It Right 99% of the Time
• The Country Surgeon Who Took Out His Own Appendix to Prove a Point — and Fixed His Own Hernia at 70
• The Doctor Who Cracked the Knuckles of Only One Hand for 60 Years to Prove His Mother Wrong
• The £50-a-Night Electric Bed That Promised Couples a Baby
• The Wound Cure You Rubbed on the Sword Instead of the Patient
• The Night-Fighter Ace Whose Secret Radar Got Blamed on Carrots
• The Rat-Tail Bounty That Turned Hanoi Into a Rat Farm
• The Tomato Pills That Cured Everything — and Contained No Tomato
• The Blindfolded Boy Who Fainted at the Wrong Apricot Tree
• The Head-Bump Machine That Printed Your Personality on Ticker Tape
• The Olympic Marathon That Rationed Water — and Fed the Winner Rat Poison
• The Farmer Who Drove Through a Blizzard With a Dead Cow and a Milk Can of Blood
• The Rooster Diagnosed by Mail With Malaria, Diabetes, Cancer, and Syphilis
• From a Lion-Headed Throne to the Cochlear Implant: A Short History of the Hearing Aid
• From Crushed Oyster Shells to Nylon: A Short History of the Toothbrush
• The Doctor Who Rode a Rocket Sled at 632 MPH — and Gave Us Murphy's Law
• The Failed Heart Pill That Trial Volunteers Wouldn't Give Back
• The Floor Cleaner That Taught America to Fear Its Own Breath
• The Battlefield Maggots That Became a Prescription Medical Device
• The Beef and Cabbage Lowered Into a Man's Stomach on a Silk String
• The Doctor Who Ate, Slept, and Worked on a Giant Scale for 30 Years
• From Laughing Gas Parties to the Operating Room: A Short History of Anesthesia
• The Family That Rang Bells and Blindfolded Mothers to Hide a Pair of Tongs
• The Wrong Resistor That Grabbed a Heartbeat Out of Thin Air
• The Woman Who Convinced the King's Surgeon She Gave Birth to Rabbits
• The Surgeon So Fast He Supposedly Killed Three People With One Amputation
• The Rescue Kits That Tried to Revive the Drowning by Blowing Smoke Up Their Backsides
• From a Milkmaid's Blisters to mRNA: A Short History of the Vaccine
• From Lamb's Blood to Blood Types: A Short History of the Transfusion
• The Doctor Who Discovered Handwashing — and Was Locked Away for It
• The Doctor Who Drank a Beaker of Bacteria to Prove Ulcers Weren't Caused by Stress
• The Doctor Who Toured America in a 'Lobotomobile'
• The Fake Metal Rods That Accidentally Invented the Placebo-Controlled Trial
• The Man Who Took an Iron Rod Through His Brain and Lived
• The Moldy Petri Dish That Almost Got Thrown Away
• The Radioactive Tonic That Dissolved a Millionaire's Jaw
• The Rolled-Up Paper That Became the Stethoscope
• The Student Who Drank Vomit to Prove Yellow Fever Wasn't Contagious
• The Summer 400 People Couldn't Stop Dancing
• The Surgeon Who Threaded a Tube Into His Own Heart
• The Two Vacuum Cleaners That Learned to Breathe
• The Watch Painters Who Glowed in the Dark
• When Doctors Recommended Cigarettes

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