stackyFACTSGoing under the knife used to involve a severe risk of spontaneous combustion. Before modern sedatives, doctors used ether to knock patients unconscious, which worked perfectly fine until a stray spark in the operating room vividly demonstrated exactly how wildly flammable the chemical was.
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Ancient anatomy was basically guesswork. To cure blindness, they squashed a pig's eye and poured the gooey remains directly into the patient's ear, expecting…
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Keeping your milk cold used to be a genuinely fatal hazard. Early mechanical refrigeration units relied on highly volatile and toxic compounds like ammonia…
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Justus von Liebig accidentally created the massive modern bouillon cube industry because he was desperately trying to figure out what to do with mountains of…
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How did the medical community officially recognize the physician who invented the ice-pick lobotomy?
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How did affluent Victorians routinely interact with ancient Egyptian mummies they imported by the thousands?
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Not every royal exit is a dignified affair on a velvet-draped deathbed. King George II of Great Britain met his undignified end in 1760 while attempting to…
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