Nathan Belofsky, "Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages"
ISBN: 0399159959 | 2013 | EPUB

Strange Medicine casts a gimlet eye on the practice of medicine through the ages that highlights the most dubious ideas, bizarre treatments, and biggest blunders. From bad science and oafish behavior to stomach-turning procedures that hurt more than helped, Strange Medicine presents strange but true facts and an honor roll of doctors, scientists, and dreamers who inadvertently turned the clock of medicine backward:

ΓÇó The ancient Egyptians applied electric eels to cure gout.
ΓÇó Medieval dentists burned candles in patientsΓÇÖ mouths to kill invisible worms gnawing at their teeth.
ΓÇó Renaissance physicians timed surgical procedures according to the position of the stars, and instructed epileptics to collect fresh blood from the newly beheaded.
ΓÇó Dr. Walter Freeman, the worldΓÇÖs foremost practitioner of lobotomies, practiced his craft while traveling on family camping trips, cramming the back of the station wagon with kidsΓÇöand surgical toolsΓÇöthen hammering ice picks into the eye sockets of his patients in between hikes in the woods.

Strange Medicine is an illuminating panorama of medical history as youΓÇÖve never seen it before.