Ah, the good old days of the 1800s, when the phrase “10 old timey” could describe a whole market of miracle cures with no FDA in sight. Back then, entrepreneurs mixed whatever they fancied—opium, alcohol, even cocaine—into potions that promised to heal anything from a sore throat to a broken heart. The lack of regulation turned the marketplace into a wild frontier of hope, hype, and outright danger.

10 Old Timey Wonders That Inspired the FDA

10 Dr. Thomas’s Eclectric Oil

Dr. Thomas’s Eclectric Oil was touted as a panacea that could erase a staggering range of ills, each with a precise timetable: a backache vanished in two hours, an earache in two minutes, and even burns found relief when the oil was rubbed onto the skin. Its bold claims covered toothaches, deafness, coughing, sore throats, and more, positioning it as the ultimate quick‑fix solution of its era.

Conceived in the mid‑1800s by New York’s Dr. S.N. Thomas and later marketed under the moniker Excelsior Eclectric Oil, the concoction blended a bewildering mix of opium, chloroform, hemlock oil, turpentine, an unspecified spirit, and alkanet for color. Its popularity surged so much that the formula was reproduced in books like the 1899 Secret Nostrums and Systems of Medicine, inviting even the home‑cook to brew their own version of this dubious cure‑all.

9 Perry Davis’ Vegetable Pain Killer

Perry Davis, a humble shoemaker‑turned‑inventor from Dartmouth, Massachusetts, suffered chronic aches that plagued him for years. Determined to find relief, he concocted a “Vegetable Pain Killer” drawn from an assortment of herbs, opium, and ethyl alcohol, claiming it could banish everything from colds and coughs to kidney distress.

Long before the modern “all‑natural” buzzword, Davis swore by his mixture, touting cures for cholera, coughs, and even horse ailments during the Civil War. Though marketed as a wholesome botanical remedy, the formula’s secret weapon was a hefty dose of opium, making it as potent as it was controversial.

8 The Microbe Killer

In the late 1880s, William Radam took the quack‑medicine craze to new heights with his “Microbe Killer.” Riding the wave of emerging germ theory, Radam claimed his tonic could cleanse the bloodstream of any disease‑causing microbe, promising a safe, scientific miracle for the masses.

The brew was produced by exposing water to vapors from sulfur, sodium nitrate, manganese oxide, sandalwood, and potassium chloride, resulting in a potion that was 99 % water. Despite its lofty promises, the tonic’s primary allure was its marketing—advertisements that outshone the Department of Agriculture’s sobering analysis and the handful of lawsuits that followed.

7 Gripe Water

Born in the 1840s as an American invention, gripe water was originally a colic‑relief elixir for fussy infants. Its early formula packed sodium bicarbonate, dill seed oil, sugar, water, and a startling 9 % pure alcohol, a combination that quickly soothed crying babies—albeit by knocking them out.

Modern iterations have stripped out the alcohol, replacing it with a blend of herbs that break up air bubbles in a baby’s digestive tract. While the original concoction would raise eyebrows today, contemporary gripe water still enjoys a place in pediatric care, now with a far gentler, more scientifically palatable profile.

6 The Seven Sutherland Sisters Hair Grower And Scalp Cleaner

Reverend Fletcher Sutherland of Cambria, New York, turned his daughters’ legendary 37‑foot tresses into a marketing goldmine in the late 1880s. Capitalizing on rumors that a secret family tonic fueled their Rapunzel‑like locks, he bottled a mixture of rum, salt, magnesia, and hydrochloric acid, branding it the “Hair Grower and Scalp Cleaner.”

The seven sisters—later members of the Barnum & Bailey circus—promoted the product with live performances, eventually raking in more than $3 million. Their astonishing hair length served as living proof, convincing consumers that the tonic could truly transform their own locks.

5 Coca Wine

Long before energy drinks hit the shelves, coca wine strutted onto the scene as a dual‑purpose libation: a fashionable wine and a medicinal stimulant. Its core ingredients—wine blended with cocaine—promised to banish fatigue, uplift spirits, and invigorate the nervous system.

Vin Mariani, a Corsican entrepreneur, pioneered the product in 1863, amassing over 7,000 physician endorsements and even a gold‑medal seal of approval from Pope Leo XIII, who allegedly carried a hip flask of the tonic for moments when prayer fell short.

Across the Atlantic, John Pemberton’s early coca‑wine formula eventually ran afoul of Prohibition, prompting a swap of wine for sugar syrup and a rebranding as a “temperance drink.” The cocaine was later stripped away, but the name endured, evolving into the world‑renowned soft drink Coca‑Cola.

4 Dr. Scott’s Electric Devices

While his gadgets contained no narcotics, Dr. George Scott earned a spot among the quack elite by flooding the market with “electric” devices that boasted magnetically charged iron rods. He claimed these brushes, combs, corsets, belts, and even horse accessories could cure everything from constipation to paralysis.

Scott’s most audacious marketing ploy warned customers never to share the devices, insisting that each use depleted the mysterious healing power. The sheer volume of his product line—spanning hats, anklets, rings, and shoe inserts—made his brand a household name, despite the dubious science behind the claims.

3 Cocaine Toothache Drops

Lloyd Manufacturing’s Cocaine Toothache Drops hit the market in the 1880s with a bold promise: “Instantaneous Cure!” for a mere 15 cents. The drops, made in Albany, New York, contained cocaine formulated as a topical anesthetic, numbing pain while attempting to curb the drug’s psychoactive effects.

Beyond toothaches, similar cocaine‑infused lozenges were sold for sore throats, and countless druggists repackaged the tablets under their own labels, spreading the potent yet risky remedy far and wide.

2 Victory V Lozenges

Victory V Lozenges rose to fame in mid‑1800s Britain as a beloved cough drop. Developed in part by confectioner Thomas Fryer, the lozenges combined a sweet licorice flavor with a warming sensation, quickly becoming a sailor’s favorite due to clever advertising that linked the product to Admiral Nelson’s legendary victories.

Behind the pleasant taste lay a potent blend of ether and chlorodyne—a mixture of cannabis and chloroform—providing both relief and a mild high. Modern versions have stripped out the narcotic ingredients, preserving only the nostalgic flavor that once soothed countless throats.

1 Bayer Heroin

In 1897, the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer introduced heroin as a “miracle” analgesic, marketing it as a cure for tuberculosis, pneumonia, and a supposed remedy for opium addiction. The company touted the drug as a safer, less addictive alternative to morphine, earning endorsements from medical societies worldwide.

Despite early acclaim—including approval from the American Medical Association in 1906—heroin’s addictive potential soon became undeniable. By 1924, an estimated 98 % of New York’s drug addicts were hooked on heroin, prompting a global crackdown and cementing the drug’s infamous legacy.

When we look back at the strange world of medieval medicine, the collection of 10 medieval remedies can feel both baffling and fascinating; yet once we grasp the underlying beliefs behind each cure, their oddities start to make a surprising amount of sense.

Why 10 Medieval Remedies Matter

10 Swallows’ Gizzards For Epilepsy

This 14th‑century English physician John of Gaddesden recorded a “simple” that calls for the tiny red stones hidden inside swallow gizzards, to be hung around the patient’s neck as a protective talisman.

The timing of the stone removal was crucial: the physician instructed that the stones be plucked at midday, when the Sun’s warmth was at its peak and the Moon’s chill was at its lowest. The stones themselves were described as “hot,” mirroring the Sun, and the cure was thought to temper the excess fire or heat that medieval doctors believed sparked epileptic seizures.

In keeping with the ancient maxim “like cures like,” St. Hildegard of Bingen and her contemporaries saw the red, fiery stones as a symbolic antidote to the fiery disturbances of the brain, making the remedy less mystical and more a reflection of prevailing humoral theory.

9 Detect Thieves And Prevent Defamation With Marigolds

The Book of Secrets of Albertus Magnus includes an astrological recipe that calls for gathering marigolds while the Sun sits in Leo during August, then wrapping the blossoms in a laurel leaf and adding a wolf’s tooth. The resulting bundle, when placed under the bearer’s head at night, was believed to reveal any thief and silence any detractor, ensuring only peaceful words were spoken about the holder.

8 Mandrake Root For Depression

The mandrake plant, whose root eerily resembles a human figure, was thought to possess amplified magical powers because of this uncanny likeness.

To lift the spirits of a despondent soul, St. Hildegard advised digging up a mandrake root, allowing it to scream as it was pulled, then immersing the root in a spring for a full day and night to purge its evil. The cleaned root was then placed beside the sufferer’s bed, accompanied by a prayer invoking God’s creation of humanity from earth, asking the untouched earth to bring peace.

This ritual, which relies on spoken prayer and the plant’s presence rather than ingestion or topical application, illustrates the medieval conviction that words and symbolic objects could restore emotional balance without physical contact.

7 Banish Anxiety With Bear’s Hair

Anxiety was as common in the Middle Ages as it is today, and St. Hildegard’s Physica offers a direct remedy: take a few strands of hair plucked from between a bear’s ears and rest them upon the chest over the heart until they warm.

Take some hair from between the bear’s ears, and place it on your chest over your heart until it warms up. Immediately you will be peaceful and calm.

The bear’s renowned strength and serenity were believed to transfer to the anxious individual, granting them a steadier, calmer disposition through the simple act of contact.

6 A Unicorn’s Hoof To Detect Poison

If a patron feared that a meal might be laced with poison, the medieval remedy was to slip a unicorn’s hoof beneath the plate or cup. Should the dish be hot, the hoof would cause it to boil; if cold, the hoof would make it steam, thereby revealing the presence of toxins.

This uncanny ability was linked to the unicorn’s symbolic purity, which by the Middle Ages had come to represent Christ himself. The creature’s immaculate nature was thought to act as a divine detector, exposing any hidden danger in food.

5 For Testicle Ailments . . . .

If you’re experiencing problems with your testicles, St. Hildegard’s Physica provides a curious cure: burn a swallow’s egg inside its shell, grind the charred shell into a fine powder, blend it with chicken fat, and then anoint the afflicted organs with the mixture.

He should burn a swallow’s egg in its shell, and then grind it to a powder. Add some chicken fat, and mix. Anoint the testicles with the mixture.

The logic rests on the egg’s perfect balance of the four humors; once cooked, it was thought to embody an ideal equilibrium that could restore harmony to the testicular region.

4 Wear A Live Bat For Jaundice

For the yellow‑tinged affliction of jaundice, the Physica instructs the practitioner to gently stun a bat, then bind the living creature across the loins with its back facing the patient’s back. After a short wait, the bat is repositioned over the stomach and left there until it perishes.

In Galenic thought, jaundice stemmed from an excess of yellow bile, a “hot” humor. The bat—or alternatively a dead widderwalo bird—was believed to counter this heat, either by absorbing the excess or by providing a cooling influence, thereby rebalancing the body’s humors.

3 Lion’s Ear Hearing Aid

According to the Physica, a lion’s ear can serve as a remedy for hearing loss: hold the ear of a lion against the deaf ear until warmth transfers, then recite a prayer invoking the lion’s keen hearing and the living God.

Hold the ear of a lion on the deaf ear until that ear warms up from the ear of the lion. Also say, “Hear adimacus, by the living God, and by the sharpness of the lion’s strong hearing.”

This cure follows the “like cures like” principle, using the lion’s renowned auditory acuity to restore the patient’s own hearing through direct contact and spoken supplication.

2 Contraception

In the 11th or 12th century, the Italian physician‑author Trotula of Salerno compiled a treatise titled De passionibus mulierum (On the Diseases of Women). Among the many remedies, she recommended that a woman carry the womb of a never‑bred goat pressed against her naked flesh to prevent conception.

This advice also appears in the English remedy collection Bodley 591, illustrating how medieval practitioners employed symbolic animal parts—here, the sterile goat’s womb—as a physical barrier to fertilization.

1 Medieval Viagra

The medieval world was as preoccupied with sexual health as modern society, and Bodley 591 records a concoction that functions much like today’s Viagra. The recipe calls for a mash of fennel seeds, parsley, agarwood (lyngnum aloes), galingale, cassia cinnamon, cardamom, and other ingredients, all ground together, sweetened, and melted in a basin.

A man described as “cold in the body or porpis” would take a handful of the cooled mixture, place it in a glass, and drink it, hoping the blend would restore vigor and sexual function.

The manuscript boasts that this drink is “very good” and “holsom,” promising to restore a man’s potency with regular use.

1 + Faking Virginity

The Trotula also offers a practical, if unsettling, method for women to feign virginity: combine one or two ounces each of dragon’s blood, hematite, oak apples, Armenian bole (a type of clay), cinnamon, pomegranate rind, alum (the ingredient in styptic pencils), and mastic.

Mix this concoction thoroughly and insert it into the vagina. The mastic and alum create a sticky mixture that liquefies when warmed, producing a deceptive coating.

This mixture would give the appearance of a sealed hymen, allowing a woman to convince others of her virgin status despite having been sexually active.

Davanna Cimino, a writer and editor living on Florida’s Gulf Coast, can be reached on Twitter @davanna.

So you’re feeling achy, sneezy, congested, or queasy due to contracting a cold. In that case, you might want to check out some of these natural albeit bizarre cold remedies with the caveat that they are not necessarily “doctor recommended.”

Let’s explore ten of the most bizarre cold remedies.

10 Wet Socks

This cold remedy will literally give you cold feet, which doesn’t sound too enticing when you already have a cold.

Here’s what to do. Take a pair of your socks- preferably cotton or wool as opposed to socks made from synthetic fibers. Soak them in ice-cold water and then wring out the excess water. Pull the socks over your bare feet. Shivers!

Next, pull a dry pair of socks over the wet pair. Climb into bed under the covers, making sure your feet stay warm and snug. When you wake up, you should find that the original wet pair of socks are completely dry in the morning. Doing this wet sock-dry-sock routine supposedly increases your body’s natural immunity while increasing blood circulation to the feet and simultaneously relieving the congestion in your head. Oh, and it also assists with the elimination of waste from the body.

9 Homemade Cough Lozenges

This homemade, natural cold remedy will soothe your sore throat along with your weary soul. It’s no fun to have a bad cough that leaves your throat feeling raw. Follow this recipe, and hopefully, these custom-made lozenges will give you some much-needed relief.

Place a saucepan on a stove burner. Add one cup of white granulated sugar and half a cup of water. Add one teaspoon of fresh lemon juice for a hit of vitamin C, one tablespoon of honey (an antibacterial that soothes a sore throat and acts as a natural cough suppressant). Add one and a half teaspoons of ground ginger (acts as an anti-inflammatory, helps maintain the immune system, and aids with pain relief and nausea). Add 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (reduces phlegm, has antiseptic properties, and contains antioxidants).

Turn on the burner and stir all the ingredients together thoroughly. Simmer on low for fifteen to twenty minutes. Stir regularly. Meanwhile, cover a cookie sheet with baking parchment. After the ingredients have finished simmering, remove the pan from the burner to allow the mixture to cool. As it cools, it should become a thick syrup.

Next, spoon teaspoons full of syrup onto the parchment about the size of a quarter per lozenge. Space them out so they don’t run together. Let the lozenges set completely. When they’ve hardened, sift powdered sugar over them and mix them around so each lozenge is completely coated. This dusting of confectioner’s sugar keeps the lozenges from sticking to each other.

8 Listening to Music

We all know that music is good for the soul but did you know it’s also good for a cold? Research done by German scientists revealed that listening (to jazz music in particular) reduces stress, which amplifies immunoglobulin levels in the body.

Immunoglobulin is a naturally occurring protein that helps the body defend itself against infection. By listening to jazz, or the second-best type of music- dance music, your antibody levels will rise while cortisol, a stress hormone, decreases. A body in a restful state has a much better chance of coming back into balance from a cold than when it is stressed.

So kick back, put in your earbuds, and lose yourself in the music. Your cold-riddled body will thank you for it.

7 Cupping and Scraping

Cupping, an ancient Chinese healing remedy, on the surface, seems a bizarre remedy for colds. If you’re experiencing congestion due to a cold, then cupping might be a good choice for relieving it. Cupping triggers your body’s energy which helps to restore and heal it.

During an appointment with a practitioner, cups are placed on the skin. Each cup is heated or pumped manually to create suction and then left on the skin for a few minutes.

There are different types of cups. Your practitioner may use edge cups, electric suction cups, Zen clear cups, or oval glass cups. They all essentially do the same thing: massage the skin at a deep level, causing increased blood flow. Increased blood flow detoxes the area where a cup has been applied.

Please note you might react to cupping treatment with a headache, nausea, fatigue, or burns if the cups are overheated before being applied to the skin. But as a rule, cupping is generally pain-free.

Another treatment is scraping, traditionally known as gua sha. The treatment entails running a scraping tool across muscle fibers, myofascial lines, along lymphatic tracks, and the meridians of the body. During a cold, having this kind of treatment can open the skin’s pores and release inflammation in the body.

When you’re feeling miserable and are desperate for some relief, any viable treatment such as this one is worth considering.

6 Make a Poultice

Making and applying a tallow poultice to your chest to relieve congestion is not just an old wives’ tale. This peculiar cold remedy is a combination of an African and European home remedy.

Take rendered cattle or sheep tallow, otherwise known as fat, and gently warm it to soften it. To the tallow, add some herbs. For example, mint aids in clearing up your congestion, while mustard adds a little heat to the poultice. Experiment with the herbs you have in your garden.

Once the tallow and herbs have been mixed, wrap the mixture in a piece of cotton flannel cloth and apply it to the chest.

Another poultice you might want to try making consists of mustard, flour, and water. Simply mix four tablespoons of flour with two tablespoons of dry mustard. Add enough lukewarm water to make a paste. Take a smooth tea towel (not terry cloth) and spread the paste over half the towel on one side. Fold the remaining half of the towel over the paste and apply to the chest. Leave the poultice on the chest for twenty minutes.

Afterward, wipe away any residue from the poultice with a clean, damp cloth. You should apply this mustard poultice once every six hours.

5 Lizard Soup

North American’s have a tradition of serving a cold sufferer warm chicken soup. But in China, lizard soup is served instead.

To simmering water, add a dehydrated lizard along with yams and dates. Cook until yams are soft. It’s reported that this soup reduces coughing and soothes other common cold symptoms. Most importantly, the broth helps to rehydrate the body due to the loss of fluids from repeatedly blowing your nose and sweating, and it aids in loosening built-up mucus.

4 Gogol-Mogol

The phrase “gag me with a spoon” comes to mind when it comes to Gogol-Mogol. Gogol-Mogol is a medicinal hot drink served to citizens in Ukraine and Russia who are inflicted with a cold.

Gogol-Mogol is made by taking one beaten egg yolk and a teaspoon of sweetener – sugar or honey and whisking them together. It’s then added to half a cup of hot milk. Next, dissolve one tablespoon of unsalted butter in the warm mixture.

To make this drink more palatable, you may wish to add a little cognac or rum; of course, this addition is for adults only. It’s believed the egg yolk soothes the throat while the L-tryptophan found in the warm milk helps you to sleep more soundly when stricken with a cold.

3 Onions and Lard

If you’re suffering from a sore throat due to a cold, you might want to slice up a raw onion and stuff it inside your socks! It turns out onions contain allicin. Allicin can reduce inflammation in the body and acts as an antioxidant.

Speaking of socks, here is an old English remedy. Take a pair of dirty socks and wrap them around your neck after first greasing the neck with either rendered chicken fat or lard. Doing this is thought to bring on sweating. And finally, seeing we are on the topic of socks, before putting on a fresh, clean pair of socks, consider rubbing Vicks VapoRub on the bottom of your feet first.

People who use this bizarre cold remedy claim it offers relief from congestion and coughing.

2 Oysters, Anyone?

Oysters are packed with zinc. So if you feel a cold coming on or, better yet, want to build up your zinc levels as cold season approaches, start eating oysters.

The strange thing is that fried and breaded oysters contain more zinc than the raw ones, which is good news for people who don’t have fresh oysters. If you don’t already know it, zinc helps to fight off cold symptoms because zinc aids in the function of our white blood cells. And it’s the white blood cells that fight viral and bacterial infections in the body.

Other sources of food rich in zinc are legumes, so you might think of making a pot of lentil soup. Also, dairy products, spinach, and meat are excellent sources of zinc.

1 Turnips

Who would guess the lowly turnip is an expectorant?

An expectorant aids in quieting coughing and can loosen mucus in the body when sick. Turnips are also loaded with vitamins A, B, and C. In Iran, it’s very common for people suffering from a cold to cook up a plate of turnips, mash them and devour them to reduce their cold symptoms.

Or you may want to try making a turnip concoction to relieve your sore throat or painful, persistent coughing!

Simply peel and cut up a turnip into pieces. Take 150 grams of these pieces and boil them in a pot with a liter of milk. Simmer for a good forty minutes. Strain the liquid off, and let it cool for a bit before drinking it. To make it more palatable, add some honey. This concoction reduces coughing due to a naturally occurring sulfurous ingredient that loosens and eliminates phlegm and disinfects the respiratory tract.

And finally, if eating mashed turnips or drinking milk infused with turnips isn’t appealing, you might prefer a turnip syrup. Make the syrup by first peeling a turnip. Next, cut it into thin slices. In a bowl or plastic container, lay down a slice of turnip, sprinkle on some brown sugar, add another slice of turnip, and so on. Cover the container and let the turnip and sugar sit for twelve hours. Drain off the turnip syrup and store in a bottle. Sip as needed.