Weird Experimental Medical Treatments That Surprisingly Worked

Experimental medical treatments are scary enough, but imagining you underwent such treatments before we had germ theory or even proper anatomy classes. Someone would get an idea, and they would try it on a patient because the alternative was death. Or they would try it because it just seemed like a good idea, like the time doctors removed some blood from a patient, bathed it in UV rays, and put it back in. It worked, but not for the reasons they thought. The same with using wine in wounds or putting a fish on your head to cure a headache.

One strange treatment didn't last long. Between the development of heart surgery and the heart-lung machine, in 1954, live human bodies were used to keep a patient's blood circulating during heart surgery, taking on the blood-pumping duties for two people. This technique, call cross-circulation, was soon discontinued, not because it didn't work (because it did!), but because the heart-lung machine soon replaced it. Read about five medical treatments that sound bonkers but worked at Cracked.   

(Image credit: Patrick J. Lynch)