Post by ck4829 on Mar 2, 2022 4:50:56 GMT
The Weird History of Diseases Which All Turned Out to Be Totally Wrong
In our endless quest to ease suffering, we group together symptoms with broken anatomy and slap on a label, calling it a disease.
For the most part, it's worked pretty well. But hindsight shows us we often get it wrong, leaving behind a graveyard of illnesses we no longer consider bona fide.
Not only does it make us question what we were thinking, it makes us wonder what future physicians might make of some of today's health conditions.
Here's just a handful of long-abandoned medical diagnoses your doctor won't put on a medical certificate.
Neurasthenia
Overworked? Fatigued? Irritable? Maybe even, dare say, impotent?
A little over a century ago, you'd be diagnosed with neurasthenia and either told to go camping or hide out in a dark room – depending on your gender.
Nostalgia
If you've ever pined after Mum's home-cooked casserole or craved the warmth of your own bed while far from home, spare a thought for Swiss soldiers in the seventeenth century. Their homesickness was so bad, doctors swore it could kill them.
The physician Johannes Hofer labelled the condition 'a neurological disease of essentially demonic cause', and gave it a name we still use to this day. Nostalgia.
Drapetomania
In the mid 19th century, an American physician named Samuel A. Cartwright couldn't work out why some African American slaves weren't keen to remain slaves.
So he came up with an illness to explain it; drapetomania, from the Greek word drapetes, which means runaway servant. He admitted this wasn't well known to physicians, but plantation owners understood it well.
The 'treatment' for slaves who ran off as a result of this so-called mental illness? Whipping and hobbling.
www.sciencealert.com/abandoned-historical-diseases-hysteria-nostalgia-drapetomania-unwell
In our endless quest to ease suffering, we group together symptoms with broken anatomy and slap on a label, calling it a disease.
For the most part, it's worked pretty well. But hindsight shows us we often get it wrong, leaving behind a graveyard of illnesses we no longer consider bona fide.
Not only does it make us question what we were thinking, it makes us wonder what future physicians might make of some of today's health conditions.
Here's just a handful of long-abandoned medical diagnoses your doctor won't put on a medical certificate.
Neurasthenia
Overworked? Fatigued? Irritable? Maybe even, dare say, impotent?
A little over a century ago, you'd be diagnosed with neurasthenia and either told to go camping or hide out in a dark room – depending on your gender.
Nostalgia
If you've ever pined after Mum's home-cooked casserole or craved the warmth of your own bed while far from home, spare a thought for Swiss soldiers in the seventeenth century. Their homesickness was so bad, doctors swore it could kill them.
The physician Johannes Hofer labelled the condition 'a neurological disease of essentially demonic cause', and gave it a name we still use to this day. Nostalgia.
Drapetomania
In the mid 19th century, an American physician named Samuel A. Cartwright couldn't work out why some African American slaves weren't keen to remain slaves.
So he came up with an illness to explain it; drapetomania, from the Greek word drapetes, which means runaway servant. He admitted this wasn't well known to physicians, but plantation owners understood it well.
The 'treatment' for slaves who ran off as a result of this so-called mental illness? Whipping and hobbling.
www.sciencealert.com/abandoned-historical-diseases-hysteria-nostalgia-drapetomania-unwell