Hearing Loss Cures of the Past

Cures for anything in the 1800s and 1900s were downright wrong. Not only were they scientifically baseless but many of the cures were morally and comically wrong. Looking back at how ridiculous people used to be is not only shocking; it’s life-changing.

The oddities started a few centuries ago when doctors believed they were the smartest people in the world. It’s easy for a doctor to develop a God complex, but doctors back then had nothing to back up their arrogance. They committed atrocities and comical mishaps on a daily basis, all in the name of good science.

Doctors who “specialized” in treating hearing loss had various methods for curing deafness; none of which worked. Despite the incredibly low, none existent success rate, doctors continued prescribing nonsense to people until the mid-1950s. Up until then, doctors shared just as many superstitious beliefs about deafness as ultra-religious purists.

Unlike today, even the rich and famous were subjected to ridiculous medicine. Take Beethoven for instance. Beethoven was the most popular music composer of his time, and he’s still considered one of the greatest musicians to ever live. Beethoven developed tinnitus in his 20s and started seeing doctors while traveling through Europe. His doctors prescribed him everything from almond oil earplugs to galvanism. Eventually, Beethoven accepted his hearing deficiencies and went back to making some of the greatest music the world has ever heard.

One of the funniest things doctors used to prescribe hearing loss patients is isolation. The belief was that ears, like the human body, needs to rest every now and then. Some may say that ears rest when the body rests, so prescribing isolation makes no sense, but those people are doctors living in the 18th and 19th centuries. Those guys (and they were all men because women weren’t allowed to practice medicine back then) knew very little about what they were doing, and they did it anyway.

If isolation and medically prescribed remedies didn’t work and they never did, people would stick things in their ears. Another common belief back then was that deafness was caused by something clogging the ear canal. While conductive hearing loss can be caused by abnormal growths and tumors, people didn’t know that back then. They were just sticking twigs in their ears hoping to cure deafness.

There were also a huge number of people pouring all kinds of substances into the ear. It’s still unclear how any of those substances were supposed to work, but people believed whole-heartedly that pouring bear fat or hog lard down their ears would cure them. Some people even washed their ears out with gas or water steamed from urine.

Several times, society went through some dangerous phases where they felt comfortable curing deafness by doing whatever it took, even if it meant harming the deaf person. The most dangerous cures involved taking a number of hardcore drugs, hoping that one of them or a combination of all of them would cure the deafness. People also encouraged deaf people to climb very high objects and jump, hoping the jolt would remove the deafness.

While many of the above-mentioned methods are no longer being practiced, spiritual and religious cures still exist to this day. For thousands of years, true believers have relied on prayers to cure all sorts of ailments; deafness and hearing loss are no different. It’s become a little different in more science-based nations like the United States. Healers in this country seem more interested in making money than curing sick people.

There’s also a large number of “quick fixes” for sale that can allegedly cure hearing loss in less than a year. Some companies have started manufacturing hearing loss pills that offer a full money-back guarantee if it doesn’t work. Companies can offer guarantees like this because they know most people will never think to return products like that for a refund.

Only licensed hearing specialists can help restore someone’s hearing. Hearing specialists firstly tell patients if their hearing can be restored because sometimes it can’t. That’s something no swindler will admit to a “client”!