Becoming menopausal is a natural part of a woman's life. We know this for a fact now, but doctors haven't always felt that way.
Until relatively recently, doctors and physicians remained pretty perplexed and, to be frank, frightened of the female body and everything it was capable of. That means that a lot of the treatments for ailments and some natural conditions of the female body, have been totally off from what they should have been.
Menopause is one of those natural progressions of the human body that doctors simply didn't understand. Because the chemistry inside of a woman goes through a lot of changes during this time, some doctors (male doctors, of course) believed that a woman was going insane when this happened.
While a woman might feel a little unlike herself during this time, she for sure isn't going insane, but simply entering a new part of her life. However, the remedies for the "sickness" of menopause and its symptoms throughout history have been ridiculous, and these 10 are just the tip of the iceberg.
Did you know these remedies before? Let us know if we missed any in the comments and please SHARE with your fellow women on Facebook!
1. Opium And "Herbal" Remedies
In the 1800s, herbal remedies as well as the use of drugs like belladonna, cannabis, or opium were used to treat menopause. Belladonna is used today for a variety of things, like hemorrhoid suppression or as a sedative, but definitely not menopause.
2. Ovariin
In the 1890s, a flavored powder made from pulverized cow ovaries, called ovariin, was prescribed to women going through menopause. It was the first treatment for menopause derived from animals.
3. Testicular Juice
Around the same time that cow ovaries were used as a medicine, testicular juice was as well. Seems a bit counterintuitive if you ask me!
4. Enemas And Bloodletting
As late as the 19th century, medieval practices like enemas, purging, and bloodletting were used to stand in as their own "vicarious menstruations." Luckily we figured out what was actually going on during menopause, so these disappeared.
5. Vegetarianism
A gynecologist called Samuel Ashwell was one of the first not to think of menopause as a disease, as he declared in text in 1844. He did still recommend things like vegetarianism and abstaining from alcohol to help through the period (pun intended).
6. "Broken" Ovary Removal
Scottish surgeon John Lizars, between 1825 and 1854, removed 200 ovaries from women who were going through menopause, thinking that if the organ had stopped working, the dried up ovary would mess with her mind and her body. He killed almost half (89) of the women on which he performed surgery.
7. Carbonated Beverages
In the middle of the 1800s, carbonated beverages were served before meals to subdue the symptoms of "the menopause."
8. Vaginal Injections
Still in the mid-1800s, a dangerous mixture of acetate, lead, morphine, and chlorine would sometimes be injected into the vagina. The acetate would no doubt mess up a woman's pH balance, and the lead? Well, the lead, morphine, and chlorine would poison her, obviously.
9. Isolation
Victorians were wary of basically everything about a woman's reproductive system, and they thought it better for women going through menopause to be shut away by themselves. In fact, they were even at risk of being diagnosed with "climacteric insanity" and locked up in asylum.
10. Surgery Down There
In the later 1800s, Isaac Baker Brown came up with his own terrifying idea: surgically remove the woman's clitoris in order to subdue her "strange" moods and new desires. Thank goodness anesthesia had been invented in time for this horrifying practice.
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