Every year, modern medical science creates devices that advance the fight against human illness, frailty and mortality, increasing both our quality and quantity of life. These are not those devices. Rather, these 10 items represent a range of medical quackery, ill-conceived inventions and just plain insanity from the past 80 years of healthcare. If you ever see any of them in your doctor's office, seek help elsewhere.

Birthing Centrifuge (1965)
This patent reasoned that one way to make childbirth easier on mothers was to spin them around in a circle while they lie on their backs, allowing the centrifugal force of the rotation to pull the baby out of the birth canal. Safety concerns aside, I have to think that the impracticality of building an adult-sized, self-propelled turntable proved too great to get this product beyond the design stage.