Along with many other dubious medical practices of the 19th century, there was a fad for "orificial surgery." This was promoted by married doctors Edward and Elizabeth Muncie, who opened the Muncie Surf Sanatorium on an island off the New York coast. The Muncies could not only diagnose illness by looking at a patient's orifices, they could determine their personality and potential, too. Various surgeries on those orifices would cure what ails you. The philosophy behind orificial surgery was a branch of homeopathy conceived by Dr. Edwin Hartley Pratt
While its conclusions are utterly bonkers, the premises that underlay orificial surgery begin at least somewhere in the region of medical science. To be in good health, Pratt reasoned, one needed normal circulation. Because the sympathetic nervous system helps determine blood flow, it must be important to good health. So far, so good. But then the evidence-based logic begins to break down. Pratt believed that disease occurs when the circulatory system is fatigued, leading to blood “stagnation.” Observing, correctly, that there are a lot of sympathetic nerves around some of the body’s orifices, in particular the sexual organs and rectum, he reasoned that by nipping and tucking these areas to keep them “properly smoothed and dilated,” poor circulation and thus disease could be kept at bay. And so, writes Ira M. Rutkow in Seeking the Cure: A History of Medicine in America, “when this giant man with the thinning hair and Vandyke beard went to work, no mouth, penis, rectum, or vagina was safe from a manipulation or scraping.” This is true—but the mouth was of far less interest to Pratt and his colleagues than their other targets.
The descriptions of such surgeries are cringe-inducing, and the fad of orificial surgery only lasted about 40 years. You can read all about Pratt's strange ideas and the Muncies' sanatorium at Atlas Obscura.