What are shocking historical facts they don’t teach you in school?

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When the Bubonic plague (known by the sexy name ‘Black Death’) broke out in Europe in the 14th century, people used methods to cure it so insane and absurd you’d rather start believing in the Flat-Earth theory.

Dumbledore finishing his barrier-chant.

Here are some ways they attempted to avoid the plague:

Live inside a sewer. People were living inside sewers based on the reasoning that living in an already-dirty environment could make you immune to the plague. That…was completely contrary to immunizing them, since rats carrying the plague thrived on sewers. People were actually going there to infect themselves.

Drink some good wine. Sure! Let’s get high cause this is probably our last night alive! Sadly, this wasn’t even the reason behind them drinking wine. They did it because…why not?

Ayy, you only get bubonic plague once.

Eat some emeralds. Let’s excuse the fact that it sounds like ‘Have a biscuit’ except this time the emerald doesn’t even constitute the same nutritional value. That’s right, people were literally eating rocks. Maybe they didn’t realize that this could horribly backfire and leave their intestines in pieces?

Stop looking at sick people. The holy doctors didn’t help one bit when they declared that the plague could be carried by an “aerial spirit”. And so forth many people stopped even looking at the sick, much less tending to them.

Put chopped onions around your house. When people didn’t have Airwick, they made do with onions, I guess. This was based on the reasoning that the plague was carried by smell. This myth became so prevalent that the National Onion Association still today has to explain to some people that onions don’t carry magical healing properties. The National Onion Association

Drink your own piss. Or the pus from one of the buboes. They believed it would make the body harder to infect (which was wrong, obviously). Regularly, they drank their piss twice a day. Yeah, no. I’d rather eat some of those emeralds.

Donate pus and save a life TODAY!!

Flog yourself. Yeah, of course God brought this on the people! Of course flogging yourself constantly, whipping your ass (literally) for 33 frickin days in one city would grant you his mercy! Yeah, of course you had to move to another city and rinse-repeat! Of course NOT!

Kill some Jews. I don’t know if it’s just me or are the Jews scapegoats for every problem in history? When in doubt, kill some Jews! Because of course they dumped the plague on our wells! Of course we should burn 900 of them IN A DAY!

And did I mention that people today still believe the plague was caused by Jews? OF COURSE THEY FRICKIN’ DO!!

But of course I must have mentioned what doctors of the plague dressed like? Oh I haven’t?

OF COURSE THEY DID!

Exclusive wizard-doctor dress with aerial spirit-blocking eye-glasses, mask, and bird beak filled with rose petal to block the smell from affecting you, now available for $9.99!!*

Buy now and get a fancy stick to poke your patients with!

*Actual doctoring fees may apply.

The Dark Ages were crazy times. These ideas may seem laughable to us now, but considering the fact that about 20–50 million people died in total and there was no cure, it is understandable that people were so desperate they’d opt for anything but death. It was understandable.

But it was still stupid.

Ah, the Dark Ages were fun times.