Throughout history, people have hatched some crazy theories about the way women's bodies work. We're not talking about, like, your crazy Great Uncle Milton here, we're talking about experts -- the physicians, philosophers and other intellectual power-players who helped develop and codify the prevailing medical wisdom of their time.


Here are eight of the wackiest things people once believed about women's bodies and their biological workings. Let's all take a moment to reflect on how just how far modern medicine (and anatomical understandings) have come, and shudder for those poor ladies of yore.



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  • Books Made Women Sterile


    You can thank Dr. Edward Clark, a physician and Harvard professor for this charming theory. In the 1870s, Clark published a book asserting that women who read and threw themselves into their studies were at risk for atrophy of the uterus and ovaries, as well as sterility. Though the concept was panned by many of Clark's contemporaries, the idea that reading somehow made women incapable of reproducing <a href="http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED233959&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED233959" target="_blank"> was taken up by opponents</a> of co-education in the years that followed.




  • Wombs Wandered The Body, Wreaking Havoc


    He may have been the father of Western medicine, but Hippocrates got one major concept seriously wrong -- that of the wandering womb. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/pms-and-the-wandering-womb/263398/" target="_blank">As <em>The Atlantic</em> explains</a>, the storied Greek physician believed that illness could be caused by a woman's womb wandering around her body. "The word hysteria is even derived from the Greek hystera, meaning uterus," <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/10/pms-and-the-wandering-womb/263398/" target="_blank"><em>The Atlantic</em> says</a>.




  • Some Girls Didn't Need To Eat


    <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/51477/true-stories-4-victorian-fasting-girls" target="_blank">As <em>Mental Floss</em> explains</a>, the so-called "Victorian Fasting Girls" of the mid 1800s and early 1900s were the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/taboo-usa-breatharian-kirby_n_3504357.html" target="_blank">Breatharians</a> of their day, spreading the belief that certain young girls were capable of living without eating or drinking. Many experts were skeptical, but as author Michelle Stacey wrote in her book on Mollie Fancher called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585421359" target="_blank">"The Fasting Girl: A True Victorian Medical Mystery,"</a> some highly respected citizens actually believed the 18-year-old's claims, "making her a "lightning rod for some of the largest intellectual storms of the time."




  • 'Hysteria' Was Cured With Vibrators


    Not only did there exist the now debunked diagnosis of "female hysteria," which encompassed any number of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480686/" target="_blank">symptoms</a>, from fits to irritability; doctors also believed that the best way to treat said disorder was with a "pelvic massage," which would lead to an orgasm. The vibrator was invented as a speedier, more efficient way to achieve the desired result and "cure" women of their hysterical tendencies. The diagnosis is no more, but vibrators are still around to the delight of many (non-hysterical) women.




  • Self Pleasure Caused Flat Breasts


    For years and years, masturbation has been taboo, but in the Victorian era, health advice manuals had a very specific concept of what it could do to a young woman's body. <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30332998/ns/health-sexual_health/t/vaginas-teeth-other-sexual-myths/#.Ud8jTD536ms" target="_blank">As NBCNews.com reports</a>, one pamphlet from the era claimed that “girls who have followed masturbating habits … show usually strong indications of it in the failure of their glandular development. Such persons are apt to be flat-breasted, or, as we term it, flat-chested."




  • Lemons Prevented Pregnancy


    Straight from the mouth of Casanova himself! The famous lothario claimed that lemons could be used as a diaphragm,<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/slideshows/2010/05/history-birth-control/casanova-condoms" target="_blank"> <em>Mother Jones</em> reports</a>. Lemon halves were thought to serve as a physical barrier to the cervix, preventing sperm from joining the egg. Um, ouch.




  • Seeing 'Ugly' Made 'Ugly' Babies


    Dr. Randi Hutter Epstein, author of "Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth" <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/the-history-of-childbirth/" target="_blank">told <em>The New York Times</em></a> that ancient birth manuals were full of strange theories about pregnancy, labor and delivery. A particularly strange one held that if a woman looked at something ugly while she was pregnant, her body somehow produced an ugly baby.




  • Women Had Fewer Teeth Than Men


    Among Aristotle's many incorrect theories on women (including that ladies were basically infertile men) was the odd assertion that women <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=aristotles-error" target="_blank">had fewer teeth</a> than men. As the Australian newspaper <a href="http://education.theage.com.au/cmspage.php?intid=147&intversion=80" target="_blank"><em>The Age</em></a> explains, nutrition and dental hygiene were somewhat lacking in ancient Greece so it's possible that some women truly did have fewer teeth, but the paper admits it's a weak defense. It would have been very easy for Aristotle to count any gaps in a woman's mouth and see that, in fact, most men and women are born with the same number of teeth. Silly philosophers.