Why 1940s Doctors Put Plastic Balls In Lungs #storytime #medicalhistory #darkhistory

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]If you had tuberculosis in the 1900s, surgeons cracked open your rib cage >> [music] >> and packed it full of solid plastic balls. To stop a lung infection, doctors perform a plombage, collapsing the lung and packing the empty cavity with dozens of heavy medical-grade balls. They treated the chest cavity like a failing retaining wall. Over the years, the plastic balls migrated, tearing through the esophagus and slowly suffocating the surrounding tissue and the organs as well. And a lot of the patients later in life had to have the balls removed because they caused damage.