Crazy careers

Food testers had it worse than you think, and more odd jobs from the past

Image: Clem Onojeghuo

From medieval Europe to early industrial America, people have taken on some truly bizarre professions. Many of these jobs existed out of necessity, cultural tradition, or lack of technology. Others were born of superstition or unusual demands of society’s elite. From leech collectors to sin-eaters, here are 10 real jobs from history that may sound absurd today but were once legitimate ways to earn a living.

Image: David Trinks

Doctors in medieval Europe and well into the 19th century used leeches for bloodletting. To obtain the large numbers required, collectors waded into marshes and let the creatures attach themselves to their legs.

The demand was so high that wetlands across Europe were nearly stripped of leeches. Despite the grisly nature of the work, it was a stable source of income for poor laborers.

Image: Josh Olalde

In medieval England, ale tasters checked the quality and fairness of beer sold in taverns. They ensured proper strength, taste, and pricing for consumers.

While the role sounds more fun than work, it involved serious regulation. Some tasters also inspected bread, showing how essential beer was to medieval diets.

Image: Daniil Komov

While this job doesn’t sound so strange—we have modern equivalents of this after all—the comparison doesn’t fully capture how essential their work was to 19th-century cities plagued by poor sanitation and overcrowded streets.

In Paris and London, rat catchers became semi-celebrities of street life. Their work helped reduce disease risks, though they themselves faced high exposure to bites and plague.

Image: Boudewijn Huysmans

In Tudor England, "gong farmers" cleaned cesspits and privies. The word "gong" had nothing to do with the Asian percussion instrument; rather, it derived from an Old English term referring to a privy and its contents.

They worked at night to avoid public disgust, carrying waste in buckets outside city walls. The job was dangerous due to toxic fumes, but surprisingly lucrative. Workers often earned more than many skilled tradespeople, though at the cost of extreme social shunning.

Image: Jessica Kantak Bailey

In Tudor and Stuart England, princes weren’t punished directly. Instead, their "whipping boy" was flogged whenever they misbehaved—a form of indirect punishment meant to instill guilt in the young prince.

The practice only worked with boys close to the prince, ensuring emotional impact. One of the most cruel practices of the era, whipping boys often gained favor and lifelong connections at court.

Image: Griffin Quinn

A colorful euphemism for "grave robber," this profession flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, as demand for cadavers by medical schools reached an all-time high while legal supply remained scarce.

Despite being illegal and widely despised, it was a lucrative career. The trade also created related jobs, as concerned families hired cemetery watchmen and private grave guards. In some infamous cases, "resurrectionists" even escalated to murder to meet demand.

Image: Stephen Radford

In gunpowder factories, specialized workers tested batches by igniting small amounts to check burn quality. How each batch responded to ignition determined the safety and effectiveness of the product.

The work was inherently perilous—accidents were frequent, and uncontrolled explosions could have devastating consequences for both workers and factories. Yet, gunpowder was so essential to empires that testing remained a permanent job.

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Did you know treadmills were originally designed for prisoners? Keep that in mind on your next visit to the gym. In 19th-century Britain, prisoners powered massive treadmills that ground grain or pumped water.

The devices also served as punishment through hard, monotonous labor. The so-called "everlasting staircase" could last for hours, leaving inmates utterly exhausted. Perhaps this also explains how prisoners could later easily outrun guards—talk about a double-edged sword.

Image: Amy-Leigh Barnard

Food tasters were employed at royal and imperial courts to sample dishes before rulers ate, ensuring safety from any poisoning attempts. The role existed in ancient Rome, medieval Europe, and even into modern times.

While certainly not the worst job a commoner could hold among royalty (whipping boys and grooms-of-the-stool arguably had it worse), and though some tasters lived comfortably at court, their job was literally a matter of life and death.

Image: engin akyurt

In 17th- and 18th-century Britain, some families hired "sin-eaters" to consume bread and beer placed on a corpse. The ritual symbolized absorbing the deceased’s sins.

Despite their spiritual services, sin-eaters were social outcasts. Typically paid in food or a few coins, they carried a heavy stigma, as they were believed to take on the spiritual burden of the dead they served.

What’s in a name?

The origin of 10 of New York City’s (many) nicknames

Image: Yucel Moran

New York City has so many monikers that one of them could very well be The City of Nicknames. Throughout its history, the most populous city in the United States has received different names, some of which refer to its political and cultural significance, while others were coined in an ironic or satirical way. Because there is a life beyond The Big Apple, in this article, we will uncover the history behind 10 New York nicknames you probably didn't know about. Are you ready?

Image: Pixabay

This is probably the most widespread nickname for New York. Although it became popular in the 1970s as an advertising campaign to attract tourists, it actually emerged as early as the 1920s. It was coined by a sportswriter named John Joseph Fitz Gerald, who at the time worked for the New York Morning Telegraph.

The expression The Big Apple in relation to New York City was used for the first time in an article on horse racing. As it was later revealed, Fitz Gerald picked it up from the way New Orleans stable hands referred to the city. "Big Apple" was what the jockeys called turf money prizes, and the biggest prize they could aspire to was, of course, in NYC.

Image: Hen Kaznelson

The nickname The Empire City refers to New York State's moniker. But in turn, it is said to derive from a statement by one of our Founding Fathers. Supposedly, George Washington once said about the city: "Surely this is the seat of the empire!".

The first written reference appeared in 1836 in an Illinois newspaper, which stated: New York City is "the Rome of America, the Empire City of the New World."

Image: Marc Kargel

In 1898, New York City was consolidated into five counties or boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and later the Bronx. So, it is not surprising that at some point in history, the nickname The Five Boroughs began to be used to refer to the city, especially when alluding to the entire metropolitan area and not just Manhattan, the city center.

Image: Jon Tyson

Today, no one would doubt that New York is a city that never sleeps: it has a lively cultural life, you'll always find a place open for a bite to eat, and you can even take the subway 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But what you may not know is that this has always been the essence of the city.

At least since the 1880s, people referred to New York City as The City That Never Sleeps for its evening mail delivery, electric lighting, and its mythical nightlife. Yet, it was Frank Sinatra who canonized the moniker in the lyrics of the song "New York, New York".

Image: Liliana Drew

What do ancient Rome and the most populous city in the United States have in common? At some point in their history, the two cities were dubbed The Capital of the World. In a 1948 essay, author E. B. White, best known for his children's books, borrowed the expression Caput Mundi from the Roman poet Lucan to refer to New York City.

Here is New York is an ode to one of the most iconic places in the world and, according to The New Yorker, is one of the best pieces ever written about the ever-changing city.

Image: NASA

In the same grandiloquent vein as The Capital of the World, The Center of the Universe is a nickname coined by Robert F. Wagner Jr., mayor of New York City between 1954 and 1965.

Perhaps the moniker is a bit of an exaggeration, but we must admit that NYC is a cosmopolitan and influential city where culture flourishes, finance thrives, and where some of the most important events in history have taken place.

Image: Alex Vegas

Yes, as you can imagine, this nickname is inspired by the many songs about the city with the title "New York, New York", one of which was popularized by Frank Sinatra.

The City So Nice They Named It Twice was first used in the late 1950s by musician Jon Hendricks. However, it was late-night talk show host David Letterman who made a version of this nickname famous in 1984.

Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

New York City is like a modern-day Tower of Babel. It is one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world, where all kinds of ethnicities and languages coexist —an estimated 700! Therefore, it is no coincidence that the city has been blessed with the nickname The Melting Pot, reflecting its great cultural diversity.

The term was used by several authors throughout history, including Henry James, but was ultimately popularized in 1908 by the play The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill, which tells the story of a Jewish immigrant who escapes a Russian pogrom to rebuild his life in New York.

Image: Naitian（Tony） Wang

You may think New York City got the nickname Gotham from the DC comic Batman. But in reality, it was the other way around. The first person to link Gotham to the city was the American short story writer Washington Irving in 1807. In turn, the author was inspired by a medieval English proverb about a village called Gotham, meaning "Goat's Town".

This tale tells the story of the town’s residents, who, to avoid the king's reprisals, pretended to be fools. Of course, Irving used this negative connotation of the term to satirize NYC. When Gotham began to be associated with the Dark Knight in the 1940s, the nickname came to invoke not New York's foolish aspects but its darker side.

Image: Jon Tyson

In stark contrast to Batman's dark Gotham, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, authors of Superman, created their Metropolis in reference to the city's cheerier face, that is, New York in the daytime. The main location of the comic book was first called Metropolis in 1939. The rest is history!