15 Most Disturbing Experiments in Human History

9. Emma Eckstein

Freud may have known a lot about the human psyche, but he didn’t know the first thing about human anatomy. When affluent Emma Eckstein explained that she was suffering from depression, anxiety, and frequent nosebleeds, Freud concluded that her symptoms were either imaginary or due to excessive masturbation. Freud’s idiot buddy Wilhem Fliess, meanwhile, concluded that the Eckstein’s issues were all connected and that they were due to a malfunction in the patient’s nose. As a result, Freud and his buddy conducted an experiment in which they cauterized Emma’s nose using cocaine for the anesthetic.