Health
Discover facts about health. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Health
Tiny balloons opened blocked arteries
Open heart surgery used to be the only fix for clogged arteries until Andreas Gruentzig decided to play balloon animal inside the human vascular system. In…
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The surgery that stopped seizures but erased new memories
In 1953, surgeons tried curing Henry Molaison's seizures by casually vacuuming out his hippocampus. It worked, kind of. He stopped having debilitating…
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The disease outbreak caused by a diet of cornmeal
When an epidemic of dermatitis, diarrhea, and dementia swept the American South, the medical elite immediately blamed poor hygiene and infectious germs. Dr.…
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The birth-control device whose string spread infection
In the 1970s, corporate greed engineered a birth control device that actively tried to kill you. The Dalkon Shield was an infamous IUD aggressively marketed…
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The worm linked to a mysterious childhood epilepsy
As if growing up wasn't hard enough, children in specific regions of East Africa face a horrific condition where parasitic blackfly bites hijack their brains.…
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The Byzantine physician who wrote about women's health
While medieval men were busy diagnosing 'wandering wombs' and applying leeches to ghosts, an ancient female physician named Metrodora casually dropped the…
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Psychiatrists once used camphor to trigger seizures
Before electroshock therapy existed, psychiatrists figured the absolute best way to cure schizophrenia was by aggressively inducing violent seizures using…
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The weight-loss surgery that caused liver failure
In the 1970s, surgeons decided the best way to treat obesity was to basically unplug the digestive tract and pray for the best. The jejunoileal bypass…
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The ice tubes once prescribed for hysteria
Victorian medicine was basically just expensive torture wrapped in a veneer of pseudo-intellectualism. Enter Dr. John Chapman and Dr. Clark, who marketed long…
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How a hotel cooling system caused a deadly outbreak
Going to a convention to swap war stories shouldn't end in an explosive mass casualty event. In 1976, an American Legion gathering in Philadelphia turned into…
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Temporal-lobe seizures trigger intense religious obsession
It turns out that a sudden, overwhelming urge to write terrible poetry and talk to God might just be the result of a misfiring temporal lobe.…
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The cooking oil sold as olive oil that killed hundreds
Trying to save a few pesetas on kitchen supplies in 1981 led to a massive casualty event that practically mimicked a biological terror attack. Unscrupulous…
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The doctor who tried treating HIV with malaria
Saving thousands from choking on errant hot dogs apparently gives you a massive god complex. Dr. Henry Heimlich, the beloved anti-choking hero, spent his…
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Medical dictionaries once called homosexuality a disease
Science loves to act perfectly objective until you flip through a vintage medical textbook and realize how deeply prejudiced it was. For decades, highly…
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How PGAD causes arousal without desire
Having hundreds of spontaneous orgasms a day sounds like a bad teen comedy, but it's actually an agonizing neurological curse. Persistent Genital Arousal…
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The risky idea that helped end polio
Injecting people with a paralyzed version of a crippling disease was a massive gamble that paid off brilliantly. Jonas Salk bucked the scientific consensus of…
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The man whose stomach became a window for science
When a musket accidentally blew a permanent hole into Alexis St. Martin’s stomach, Dr. William Beaumont saw a career-making opportunity rather than a tragic…
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Correcting low sodium too quickly can paralyze you
In the mid-20th century, doctors discovered that aggressively correcting low sodium levels in alcoholic or malnourished patients was an incredibly bad idea.…
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Heimlich tested his maneuver on anesthetized dogs
Before Henry Heimlich became a household name for violently hugging choking people, he tested his theory on anesthetized beagles. He shoved meat down their…
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The one-minute checklist that changed newborn care
Before 1952, doctors practically ignored newborns in the delivery room, often letting struggling infants die because they assumed nothing could be done.…
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The surprising skin-disease research of John Langdon Down
History remembers John Langdon Down for classifying Down syndrome, but the guy had a bizarre side hustle cataloging crusty rashes. Long before modern…
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The black urine that revealed a genetic disease
Nothing says 'medical breakthrough' quite like staring at diapers full of jet-black pee. In 1902, Archibald Garrod noticed babies with alkaptonuria had urine…
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Minamata’s poisoned cats danced before humans fell ill
Corporate greed literally poisoned the food chain in Minamata, Japan, and the first warning sign was the local stray cats doing backflips into the ocean. A…
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Obsolete medical diseases hidden in print
Medical history is essentially a graveyard of hilarious, obsolete diagnoses used to control people. Crack open a vintage edition of Taber's Medical Dictionary…
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