Quackery

by Lydia Kang

  The Prostate Gland Warmer

  The Electro Thermal Company of Ohio manufactured a rectal gland warmer called the Thermalaid, which ran an electric current, regulated by a light bulb, through its hard rubber exterior in an effort to “stimulate the abdominal brain.”

  “If a rectal dilator is used it will furnish a constant heat to the rectal anatomy, causing a gentle stimulation of the capillary blood vessels and the resultant improved local nerve condition.”

  The regulatory light bulb inevitably led to some awkward encounters. “Hi honey, I’m home, saw you had a light on late and—oh my God, what are you doing?”

  The Recto Rotor

  This vicious-looking device was inserted into the rectum, where it would lubricate the prostate and colon and “massage the muscles of the rectal region.” The advertisements assured consumers that they could be used by the patient himself “in the privacy of his own home,” thus sparing the user the embarrassment of using a Recto Rotor in public. The size of the rotor was also advertised as “large enough to be efficient, small enough for anyone more than fifteen years old.” And that just raises all sorts of troubling questions, doesn’t it?

  Spray-On Hair

  If you had a sleepover sometime in the 1990s, you probably caught an infomercial late at night where baldness and thinning hair were hidden by an aerosol can of “spray-on hair.” The product, called GLH (short for “Great Looking Hair”), was as ridiculous as it sounds (only $39.92!), but the infomercial is worth tracking down on YouTube for the testimonial of a deeply unfortunate young man with both a mullet and a receding hairline, who boldly claims that after using GLH “the babes are back.” Spray-on hair still has a market today. Thanks, mullet man.

  Muscle Stimulators

  Looking to tone your muscles without actually doing anything? Electronic muscle stimulator (EMS) machines “work” the muscles by jolting them with electricity, causing involuntary contractions. The Executive Briefcase model from Executive Fitness Products, however, also caused another involuntary reaction: cardiac arrhythmias. The FDA ordered the destruction of the machines in 1996.

  Beard Generators

  Probably the worst time in history to be alive as a man who couldn’t grow facial hair was Victorian England (or Portland, Oregon, in the noughties) when chest-length beards, bushy sideburns, and elaborate mustaches were all the rage.

  To help, an advertisement for a topical treatment called Professor Modevi’s Beard Generator ran in London newspapers, claiming to generate robust beard growth from a scant four to six weeks of use, even by “young men not above seventeen years of age.” [Ingredients not stated.]

  Watch a boy become a man before your very eyes.

  Animals

  Creepy Crawlies, Corpses, and the Healing Power of the Human Body

  19

  Leeches

  Of Leech Pendants, Mercedes-Benz Bites, Leech Fight Club, Drunken Cannibal Worms, and the Predicament of Asslessness

  In 1850 London, a physician makes a house call on a woman with a nagging sore throat. Clearly, swollen tonsils are to blame. Clearly, decongesting and shrinking them will solve the problem. Clearly, the answer to the problem is … leeches.

  From a portable earthenware jar, he withdraws a single dark, slimy, squirming leech, about three inches long. It wriggles briskly from hunger. He pierces the tail end with silk-threaded needle, then pushes the writhing leech “pendant” into a clear glass tube, to direct the leech’s hungry mouth onto the offending tonsil. The leech sinks its tiny, toothy jaws onto the swollen tissue, but the patient hardly feels the bite. After all, the leech’s best offense is to be as inoffensive as possible. Stealth biting is a good thing.

  There is a ticklish sensation from the squirming. The leech swells larger and larger, until replete with blood. It detaches happily and is yanked away by its tether. The patient feels a trickle of salty blood at the back of her mouth for an hour or more.

  This gag-worthy scene was incredibly commonplace in history. After all, the leech has been sucking blood out of the human race, with our permission, for a long, long time.

  The Origins of Leechcraft

  Leeches and bloodletting were believed to accomplish the same goal—relieving the body “congested” of blood and inflammation. By bleeding away the “bad” blood, you could potentially bleed away the problem. Any problem. The reasons for leeching were many, including venereal diseases, brain inflammation, epilepsy, hysteria, organ disease, and tuberculosis.

  So who’s responsible for bringing leeches into our lives? You can start with the Egyptians, whose tombs document the earliest use of leeching, for curing fever-borne illnesses and flatulence, as far back as 1500 bce. In Homer’s Iliad, Podalirius, one of the sons of Asclepius, was a healer and referred to as a leech. Then there’s the ancient Chinese story claiming leech therapy began when King Hui (d. 430 bce) accidentally swallowed one in his salad and was surprised to find that his stomach ailments improved.

  But leeching really took off with the theories of Hippocrates in the fourth century bce and, later, Galen in the second century ce. Both physicians firmly established the idea that bleeding could bring balance to the humors. These distinct bodily elements, considered to be the source of health and disease, drove the theories of Western medical care for nearly two centuries.

  After Hippocrates and Galen, we begin to see more and more evidence of leech use for everything from removing evil spirits (Themison of Laodicea, Syria) to treating hearing loss (Alexander de Tralles). One medieval physician even claimed that it “sharpens the hearing, stops tears, … and produces a musical voice.” If only we could all just apply a squirmy bloodsucker and become Beyoncé.

  So if leeching and bloodletting accomplish the same goal, why use a slimy creature instead of a lancet to let the blood flow?

  Nineteenth-century leech jar.

  Leech vs. Lancet

  First, consider the animal itself. Hirudo medicinalis, the lofty Latin name for the common medical leech, was born to suck blood. For starters, its saliva contains a blood thinner (hirudin) that keeps blood from clotting and ensures an ample flow. And to digest the meal? These creatures put mammals and their one or two or three stomachs to shame by having ten stomachs for digesting. The leech is also overachieving teeth-wise. It has three jaws, with about one hundred teeth per jaw. That’s a three-hundred-tooth bite, which leaves behind a mark in the shape of the Mercedes-Benz hood ornament.

  Unlike lancets, fleams, or bladed scarificators, a leech bite was relatively painless, thanks to its saliva. A genius concoction of chemicals, leech spit thoughtfully contains anesthetics to keep its host comfy and unaware, useful in the wild when an irritating scratch from a host could end a feeding before it started. The ancient Sanskrit text Sushruta Samhita, which discussed the use of leeches instead of regular bloodletting on “imbeciles” and “persons of extreme timid disposition,” praised the practice as a “gentler” therapy.

  Leeches also allowed for more accurate, targeted bleeding. Bloodletting was often done on the upper arms, but in smaller, tighter areas, something smaller and tidier was needed. Because leeching practitioners thought that the bloodletting ought to occur closest to the area of problem, the bloodsuckers were placed on the temples for headaches, behind the ears for vertigo, on the back of the head for lethargy, on the belly for stomach ailments, and over the spleen for epilepsy. And for menstrual afflictions, they’d be placed on the upper thighs, vulva, and sometimes directly on the cervix. In fact, leeching chairs were created with holes in the seat area to apply anal leeches.

  Commence uncomfortable leg crossing right about now.

  Oh, don’t worry! It gets worse, which brings us to our next point: Leeches could go where lancets couldn’t—inside the body. Sometimes, a good anal bleeding wasn’t enough. Internal management was necessary, especially for intestinal inflammation and prostate problems. There was just one snag: The worms would be, ahem, forcefully ejected. One clever physician created a grooved met
al rod designed for holding and inserting threaded leeches to good effect. It was quite fancy, with a nice leather handle. In 1833, a Dr. Osborne described the procedure. After shoving the leeches deep into the anus, “The instrument is withdrawn, and the leeches are suffered to remain till gorged with blood.” It seems that “suffered” is the apt word in this scenario. Poor things. Poor person.

  Leeches were also used in the vagina to either stimulate menstrual flow or treat painful menses, but it was noted that this particular use should be “confined to married women” and “a clever nurse should be taught to apply them.” We sincerely hope she was paid well for this.

  The Anatomy of a Leech

  A leech has three jaws, 300 teeth, and a distinct Mercedes logo–shaped bite.

  Making the Most of Your Leech

  As for prime leeching conditions, leeches prefer to bite clean, freshly shaved skin. No stubble! “I have found the sharp points of the incised hairs so greatly to annoy them,” declared Mr. Wilkinson, a leech expert in 1804 London. Something to remember when wading in muddy ponds—prickly legs can be a good thing. But even with the smoothest of skin, the dainty beasts sometimes needed a little coaxing. The Lancet reported in 1848 that they bit more vigorously if dunked in a nice dark beer or some diluted wine. The area of skin could be bathed in milk, sugar water, or best, a little bit of fresh blood. Even a tiny knick from a knife tip could do the trick. This latter technique is still used today.

  After fifteen minutes or so, the blood-filled leech usually fell off the patient, but occasionally the practitioner had to remove it. A sprinkling of table salt over the leech’s head helped because yanking it off might traumatize the skin. If the leech appeared to have fallen asleep from a food coma, a hard flick of the finger and a splash of water quickly revived it.

  Often after leeches were removed, further bleeding was coaxed from the bites by wrapping the area in warm linen to dilate the patient’s blood vessels. Others recommended perpetuating the ooze by submerging the patient in a warm bath.

  In 1816, Dr. James Rawlins Johnson published his Treatise on the Medicinal Leech. Besides the aforementioned methods of leech use, he studied the leech itself with exacting care. He tested to see if they were cannibals (they were); he froze them with or without salt to see if they would die (snow plus salt was worse). He even had leech fights between burly horse leeches and medicinal leeches (the horse leeches won). He also tortured them with carbonic acid, mercury, gas pumps, and olive oil, and was surprised to find that the leech “is very tenacious of life.” (The authors stopped reading after they reached this choice sentence: “Hermaphroditic impregnation may occur in a single leech.” The visual is … never mind. Just don’t.)

  As noted earlier, leeches were used inside the body, as well as outside. This, of course, begs the question: How to get the parasites out? Philip Crampton, an avid practitioner in 1822, had a solution: Thread the poor things. After applying these leeches directly to swollen tonsils, he noted that threading “causes them to bite with increased ardor, and, in fact, may be used to stimulate torpid leeches.”

  They needn’t have worried: If a leech was swallowed, it would likely be digested by stomach acid. But not knowing this, medieval practitioners recommended gargling with goat urine, coaxing the leech out with a cautery iron, or making the patient thirsty as to “bait” it to crawl out for a refreshing drink of water. The ends did not justify the means by any extent because it didn’t work. Come to think of it, nothing justifies the drinking of goat urine.

  There was also the matter of recycling. Leeches weren’t always tossed after a feeding. They could be reused up to fifty times if the animals were “encouraged” to disgorge: just dab a little salt on their mouths (which is really starting to sound like the leech equivalent of dabbing hydrochloric acid on a human). The leeches would then vomit like Ozzy Osbourne in his heyday. The cost savings were considerable. Other doctors would drop the engorged leeches into vinegar (a whole bath of acid!) and they’d perk up. Or so we imagine. In this manner, they could be used twice a week for up to three years.

  The care and keeping of leeches was no small task. Mr. Wilkinson explained, “In short, so much patience, as well as dexterity, is required in the management of these capricious, or rather irritable animals.”

  Sounds like Mr. Wilkinson wanted to bite the leeches right back.

  Drawbacks and the Wormy Downfall

  Leeching had its drawbacks. The classic Mercedes-Benz bite sign wasn’t exactly a badge of honor. Despite a short time when leeches were fashionable (leech shapes were embroidered onto dresses in the nineteenth century), people often covered their bites in public.

  Remember that whole “reuse” thing? Before “single-use leeches” and other medical equipment were introduced, multiuse leeches could create more problems than they fixed. One report in 1827 showed how a leech was used for a syphilitic patient, then reused to treat a child, who then contracted the disease.

  Another limitation of the leech was the fact that it could take in only about a tablespoon of blood. To keep a continuous flow, one could snip off the tail and let the ingested blood flow freely. It’s a sort of Sisyphean method to leechcraft. They eat and eat, and never get full, and they have become completely assless. And then they die. What a life.

  Some patients died from overenthusiastic leeching, as in the case of a two-year-old girl in 1819 who died of a hemorrhage from a single bite. Because of the long-lasting blood-thinning properties in leech spit, patients could continue to bleed well after the leeching. Often, a single treatment was not enough. The numbers could be staggering. François-Joseph-Victor Broussais, one of the most sanguinary of physicians from the nineteenth century, applied up to fifty leeches at a time. Another physician applied 130 leeches to a poor soul’s testicle for gonorrhea treatment. It is, perhaps, one of the best advertisements for STD safe-sex campaigns.

  If that weren’t enough, the bites themselves could become contaminated with dangerous, life-threatening infections. Nineteenth-century medical literature is riddled with case reports in which the bites became the focus of problems.

  Unlike lancets, leeches were high maintenance. They were, after all, finicky eaters and somewhat unpredictable. It’s not easy to get a leech to bite exactly where you want it to, and thus custom glass leech tubes were used for application. Special jars were used to carry them around town. So much work!

  By the mid-nineteenth century, a growing crowd of physicians began to earnestly denounce “heroic depletion therapy,” thanks to a more solid understanding of physiology, pathology, and a certain something called statistics. One of the founding fathers of evidence-based medicine was Pierre Louis, who was a staunch defender of facts over vague theorizing. He found no convincing evidence that bloodletting was efficacious. Others, like John Hughes Bennett, followed suit.

  By the early twentieth century, bloodletting and leechcraft for any random illness had, well, bled out.

  Fresh Leeches for Sale!

  Where did one acquire a leech? At the turn of the nineteenth century, poor English children would wade into murky freshwater and sell the leeches clinging to their legs for pocket money. But soon, leeches became scarce. Even baiting your fish line with chunks of liver did no good.

  By the 1830s, England’s consumption of leeches hit an all-time high. Leeches were being imported from Turkey, India, Egypt, and Australia. Forty-two million leeches were imported to England from France in a single year. The United States loved leeching, too, but its homegrown Macrobdella decora had a smaller bite and drew less blood, so they also imported Hirudo medicinalis.

  Soon, hirudiculture, or leech farming, emerged to meet the demand. At these “leecheries,” cows, donkeys, and decrepit horses were driven into muddy waters or marshes, sometimes slashed with cuts to encourage feeding. In 1863, the British Medical Journal noted, rightly so, that “Hirudiculture is a tolerably disgusting business.” Today, leech farming is clean cut, complete with filtered water systems and scien
tifically organized breeding. Not a poverty-stricken kid or decrepit horse in sight.

  The Modern “Biting Edge” of Medicine Today

  Many would be shocked and surprised to hear that leeches are still used for legitimate reasons. (Also, thank goodness for antibiotics. No one really wants a leech sucking on their strep throat, right?)

  For one thing, there was the discovery of hirudin by John Berry Haycraft in 1884. Hirudin is the main blood-thinning protein in leech saliva. Now, milking itty-bitty leeches for their oral secretions, rattlesnake-style, isn’t really possible. So scientists instead synthesized versions of hirudin, and still use them today as clot-busting and clot-preventing anticoagulants.

  The leech’s ability to bite small areas of the body, remove unwanted blood, and prevent blood clotting are beneficial in the right situation. After reconstructive surgeries for delicate, small areas such as fingers, ears, and nose tips, leeches can gently decompress tissues engorged with blood, and by doing so, improve blood flow and the survival rate of those tissues. In free flap reconstructions, where whole sections of flesh and skin, together with their blood vessels and nerves, are sewn onto new areas (such as head and neck reconstructions after a lifesaving cancer removal), leeches have prevented swollen tissues from cutting off delicate blood supply.

  So in some cases, leeches are good for you! It almost makes you want to snuggle up with a slimy critter to say thank you.

  20

  Cannibalism & Corpse Medicine

  Of Real Vampires, Gladiator Juice, a Not-So-Innocent Pope, Blood Marmalade, Skull Moss, and Mummy Remedies

  The year was 1758. James and Walter White, ages twenty-three and twenty-one, were set to be executed by hanging at Kennington Common, in London. Hangings were a wonderful way to remind people not to commit crimes and, moreover, were an excellent source of entertainment. Like many executions at the time, the criminals were likely driven up to the gallows in a cart, their necks encircled with stout rope that would be bound to the high beam set up in the common. In short order, the cart would be pulled away and those who were once criminals would swing and jerk in the breeze until they were lifeless corpses.