Mercury Drug
Mercury, which is now recognized to be highly hazardous, was previously extensively employed to treat illness. The ancient Persians and Greeks used it topically and administered it as an oral medicine to grant them everlasting life. Clearly, it didn’t work (Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang was one mercury victim, allegedly dying after ingesting “immortality” mercury tablets). Mercury was also utilized to treat sexually transmitted illnesses such as syphilis until the early twentieth century.
Python Bile
Animal bile was previously utilized by Chinese doctors to cure a variety of ailments. (If you’re not acquainted with bile, it’s a yellow, orange, or green aqueous fluid produced by the liver’s “exocrine” secretion.) Python bile was used to cure a variety of illnesses, including colic, hemorrhoids, dysentery, gingivitis, and “ulcers of the external female genitalia,” according to the World Journal of Gastroenterology.