This week: a whirlwind history of bad medical practices, worse medical practices and medical practices that--while still pretty awful--looked fantastic by comparison. Western medical history began with a madman who threw himself into a volcano to prove he was a god, and it only went downhill from there. For our story, we look at how one man managed to change 19th century medicine for the better, and how his discovery managed to make 20th century medicine worse.

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