Medicine Macabre

Eyes and Needles – Part 2

I needed to lighten the mood, so I just put this here to break the eyes. Ha.

(If you’d like to catch up, ‘Medicine Macabre – Eyes and Needles – Part 1’ can be found here)

Alas. If the readership of my previous articleon eyes is anything to go by, it would appear that there are certain thresholds of squeamishness that even the hardiest of medical history aficionados take issue with. I have…

Eyes and Needles – Part 1

“This won’t hurt a bit…”

Let me pose a question: how much do you value the sight of your loved ones?

How much stock do you place by seeing your children, your parents, perhaps a lover? How much would you miss the sight of a sumptuous red-lined morning sky, or a panorama of stars in full splendor on a warm summer night?

Rather a lot, I would presume.

Now consider this; how much value would you…

The General’s Leg

The American Civil War, like any conflict, produced a cast of both famous and infamous characters and personalities throughout its brutal span. Whilst some, like General Sedgwick and his famous last words, (“Why are you dodging like this? They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist-“) will always hold a special place in our hearts , it’s hard not to give center stage to General D.E. Sickles, the…

Use, rinse, repeat.

My esteemed audience.It is with great urgency that I must present to you a deeply concerning and frankly alarming statistic: following extensive research, I have discovered that sexual intercourse is the leading cause of the most pernicious and tormenting of maladies affecting young people today. No, it’s not venereal disease of which I speak, not genital warts or…

The Lady and the Pox

“Well Bob, I suppose the good news is that it’s not a mosquito bite…”

MERCUTIO I am hurt. A plague o’ both your houses! I am sped. Is he gone and hath nothing? BENVOLIO What, art thou hurt? MERCUTIO Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough. Where is my page?—Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

-Romeo and Juliet

A pox on you! Possibly the most used insult of antiquity laid at the feet of enemies…

Dr. Pembroke’s Remedies – Kendal Black Drops

Those of you who are regular readers of my delightful romps through the darker side of medical science might sometimes lend themselves to question – where on earth does he get the energy? Where on earth, you wonder, in between his thriving yet surprisingly lethal medical practice, endless social engagements and the occasional spot of late night grave-robbing, does he find the time and impetus to…

A Quick Trip to the Doctor

“I could have sworn I had three sets of forceps… where on earth did I leave them?”

A trip to the doctor is a common enough practice. You feel a twinge here, an ache there, and off you pop to consult the local quack, who following careful examination will dutifully dispense practiced wisdom and efficacious treatments. All of which will be promptly ignored when that little problem you had just…

Surgery Floor Scrapings Vol. 1

In my research and readings, I often come across little tidbits of medical information and history, too juicy to leave alone and yet not substantial enough to merit an entire article. I decided to collect some of my favourites together for you into one handy to read collection. Enjoy!

This instrument is responsible for more unwanted children than a 70’s rock band.

Like myself, you probably enjoy…

I love to garden. The joy of observing the steady growth of a living thing, flourishing and burgeoning in your tender custody. Quite the opposite of my otherpastimes, usually involving the very dead, or soon to be so. Yet, surprisingly, human corpses and gardening share a connection. Can grisly corpse-work somehow complement our horticultural interests? One prominent English surgeon and…

The Music of Surgery

Who can choose when or where the Muses descend and sow their creative seeds, and significantly, who can decide what form that creativity takes? For example: to some, my work is an abomination. To me, it is art.

Suffice it to say, the muse assigned to Monsieur Maraise was having a particularlybad day when it proffered upon him this peculiar and macabre classical composition – the little known…

Torment and Teeth - The History of Tooth Pulling

There’s no sound you enjoy more, I know, than the resounding crack as a tooth puller, expert or otherwise, yanks free a partially decayed tooth from your sweet mouth. Now consider such a procedure sansthose delightful opiates you’re fond of consuming, and imagine every excruciating jolt of pain lancing into your very skull as the local barber, blacksmith, or anyone handy who owns a pair of…

Dr. Pembroke’s Remedies – Beer Medicine!

Ladies and Gentlemen! Do you need an excuse to drink? Do you suffer from all manner of ailments, imaginary or otherwise? Do your children complain too much? Of course, all children do.

Well have no fear, because with the use of clever advertising and an amnesiac approach to common sense and medical understanding, you too can enjoy rejuvenation and revitalization at the hands of the most unlikely…

‘L’Inhumation précipitée’ – Antoine Wiertz – 1854  – a.k.a that time when you just died, but then you realize you want a glass of water.

One of my favorite topics to explore is the terrifying phenomenon of being buried alive (also delightfully known as vivisepulture). It remains one of our supreme dreads, and while for some premature internment may be but a minor inconvenience (remember the thric…

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Sleep tight.

It has often been said that the compassion by which we treat the incarcerated is indicative of the state of our society as a whole. A logical extension of this sentiment would be to bring under scrutiny the conditions by which we care…

Extra points if you can spot the mostly intact fruit cake you ate four years ago.

Major discoveries in medicine can occur for different reasons. Some, the result of slow, careful work; aggregate studies and experiments done over time with methodical precision. Some advances however are made as a result of purely circumstantial occurrences. The most dramatic example of this is perhaps the tale of…

Genius can often come at the cost of deep rooted psychological disorders, and one such man, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), prophet of both theological revelation and neurological study, is such an example. In a fraction of the time that most researchers spend to make similar analyses, Swedenborg had predicted the function and value of the brain well over 100 years in advance of modern…

At the end of the eighteenth century,…