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Tobacco Smoke Enema

As the name suggests, a tobacco smoke enema involves literally blowing smoke up the patient’s rectum.

They were thought to both warm the patient from within and stimulate respiration.

Word of their benefits quickly spread, after a women who drowned in a river woke up after it. People were soon using tobacco smoke enemas to treat everything from headaches and abdominal cramps to typhoid and cholera.

The danger to the “medic” also increased, if a practitioner were to accidentally breathe in rather than blow out — perhaps during a bout of tobacco-induced coughing — cholera could pass into their lungs and inflict them, fatally.

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