10 Absurd Ancient Beliefs

If you were alive several hundred decades ago and had a terrible migraine what would the doctor recommend? Oh you know, just the usual- some painkillers, caffeine, water or DRILLING A HOLE IN THE HEAD. While modern medicine tries to save lives and relieve people of their illnesses in the most painless way possible, ancient medical beliefs were bent upon doing just the opposite. One such belief was the use of Trepanation- carving out holes in the head using a crude piece of metal for cutting out a round piece of skull bone. In ancient times, it was believed that piercing the head would not only cure migraines and epileptic seizures, but could also be used on mentally ill people to ‘allow the bad spirits to escape’. Needless to say, if someone was not mentally disturbed before this absurd treatment, they would definitely lose their mind after the treatment.

Condoms, diaphragms, douching, IUD’s, creams, jellies, foams, the pill, the morning-after pill, tubal litigation… jeez what’s with all the gazillion birth control methods these days ladies? Why go through all the hassle when you can just do what the Canadians did several decades ago? In the 16th century, Canadians believed that the testicles of small furry animals were the key to prevent unwanted pregnancies, thus an interesting means of female contraception was devised: the testicles of beavers were ground up & mixed with alcohol and eventually the mixture was drunk. While there are doubts as to whether this concoction ever prevented a single pregnancy there are no doubts about the fact that this contraceptive came with an added bonus: puking your guts out all over the place like a sick inebriated hobo.

For centuries people believed that Mercury could treat pretty much anything and everything. Scraped your knee? Just rub a little mercury on it. Having some problems with regularity? Forget fibre, time to get some mercury up in there. More than a 100 years ago if you didn’t have enough shiny, silvery liquid running through your veins you simply weren't considered healthy enough.

Mercury, as we now know, is toxic as hell. Symptoms of mercury poisoning include chest pains, heart and lung problems, coughing, tremors, violent muscle spasms, psychotic reactions, delirium and hallucinations. Of course, people back then weren’t aware of even half of these side-effects because if they were, they wouldn’t keep trying to cure everything with it for 1,000 years.

There was a ‘silver’ lining, though, as it helped to fight the spread of STDs. Mercury was used as a cure for syphilis and to its credit, the "cure" usually resulted in one less person with syphilis in the world.

The hardest part about owning a pet dog is keeping up with the mess they make everywhere, especially new puppies that are not house-broken. Any puppies or dogs reading this will agree that they are taken for granted in this age, where people yell and scream at them for making a mess and that they would be better off in the Elizabethan era where puppy urine was a very sacred necessity.  Back in the 1500’s in old England, the women believed that the use of puppy urine was an essential beauty treatment that would do wonders for their complexion. Puppy urine was a luxury item that only rich men and women could afford. They would rub the urine on their faces, brush their teeth with it, bathe in it and many women even drank it- all in the name of beauty.

During the Chou Dynasty of China (770 BC - 222 BC), the Yin-Yang theory began to take shape. According to this belief, men and women were split up into the yin and the yang which was basically the life force of a person. Women were said to possess a limitless supply of yin while men were said to have a dangerously low supply of yang essence. It was strictly believed, then, that men should never use up their yang without first getting plenty of yin. Translated into normal English this would mean that men were expected to orgasm only AFTER their partner had orgasmed multiple times to which would increase the level of yin which the men could then use to increase their yang. If this was not followed, then the man's life force would be drained from him until he eventually died.

“Running into debt isn't so bad. It's running into creditors that hurts”. All those who are crushed under debt, running away from the clutches of their creditors, planning to change their name and identity and move to a different planet, look no further for a way out of your personal hell, because I have a solution for u. Read and take heed. In Eighteenth century England, it was widely believed that if a wealthy and prosperous woman married a man with debts, the creditors would be unable to reclaim their money from the newly married man. As if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, there’s another catch to this situation. They believed that this solution would work only if the woman was married naked. So you get to marry a woman who is rich AND naked. Hallelujah! Awesome solution, eh? EH?

If someone took a picture of us sleeping after a particularly tiring day of work, chances are that the picture is going to turn out something like this: sprawled across the bed, mouth open, drooling copiously on the pillow. We may find it amusing and hilarious but to many ancient Romanians this was not a laughing matter at all. A popular Romanian belief was that it was dangerous for someone to sleep with his or her mouth open. They believed that the person’s soul would run out of the open mouth and escape in the shape of a tiny mouse, travelling freely through the night. And if in the morning, the mouse did not return, they would never wake up to see the light of the day. Remember when mama said you should close your mouth before you catch a fly? Well now you also have to remember to close your mouth to keep the soul-mouse in or you’ll die.

In ancient Mesopotamia, right after marriage, all women were ordered to visit the Temple of Ishtar (the primary deity of the era) because of the belief that this would bring fertility to the female. In other words, it was believed that having sex with a stranger BEFORE having sex with your husband was a good thing. At the temple, the women were required to sit and wait until a random stranger came by, threw a piece of silver in their lap and declared “I invite you in the name of Mylitta" (another name for Ishtar). Upon receiving the silver, the woman would leave the temple with the man and have sex with him, after which she could finally return home, assured of future fertility. Once a man invited the woman in the name of the deity, she had no right to refuse him and had to comply. While the good-looking ones had to wait for only a day or two before they were chosen by a stranger, the less attractive ones would have to wait years before they would find a piece of silver in their laps.

Mandrake is the ugly and poisonous cousin of the potato. They contain certain chemicals which give them a bulgy appearance and the roots have bifurcations causing them to resemble human figures. Because of their unusual guise, many strange beliefs and myths are associated with these vegetables. In the Middle- Ages, people believed that if a person dug up a mandrake, it would scream and vomit out blood and that the person responsible would die shortly afterwards. To prevent this, it was believed that to pull out this mystical plant, a dog should be tied to the root of it, after which the person tying the dog must get away. The dog would then try to follow him, pulling out the plant as it goes and then dying instead of his master. After this, the root can be handled without fear. Another absurd belief about this creepy looking vegetable was that it would only grow where the semen of a hanged man dripped to the ground.

Moodiness, nervousness, irritability and the ‘tendency to cause trouble’ were believed to be valid symptoms for a deadly serious medical condition called ‘Female Hysteria’ back in the 19th century. So, how exactly do you cure a so-called "condition" that coincidentally was diagnosed almost entirely to women who dared disobey their Victorian husbands? Glad you asked. The prescription for female hysteria was usually a good spot of doctor administered vaginal massage until the woman achieved "hysterical paroxysm." Yes that's right, the cure for female hysteria was believed to be a good old dose of a vaginal stimulation by the doctors. In those sexually repressed times visiting the doctor's office must have been like a trip to heaven and back for women. Doctors back then, on the other hand, were not too happy with women barging into their clinics requesting to be "cured" by their magic fingers. Nineteenth-century medical journals lamented that many hysterics taxed their doctors' stamina. Physicians complained of having trouble maintaining therapeutic massage long enough to produce the desired result. Necessity being the mother of invention, physicians began experimenting with mechanical substitutes for their hands. They tried a number of genital massage contraptions, among them water-driven devices and steam-driven pumping dildos and finally, after many tries, the electrical vibrator. Now THAT’S a happy ending.