Presented September 18, 2024
Before Pasteur and development of germ theory in 1859, medicine was nothing short of the wild wild west. And with antibiotics almost a century away, doctors could only treat the symptoms of the sickness, not the sickness itself. The cures were often strange, indeed — and could be worse than the illness. Join MHM volunteers Matilda Garrido and Ashley Semrick on Zoom for a lively discussion of medical cures used in the 19th century. Matilda will tell us all about “cures” such as leeches, bloodletting, and the medicinal use of maggots; Ashley will discuss hydropathy and other cures used by the Roebling family, as well as unusual 19th century ideas about pregnancy and birthing. We’ll finish up with a discussion of the ‘wandering uterus,’ thought for centuries to be the cause of all female ills.
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