Saliva and crow’s vomit
The University of Pavia in northern Italy is one of the oldest in the world, founded in 1361. It has […]
Bewildering research, Unusual treatments
October 2015
Horrifying operations, Unfortunate predicaments
Glass half-empty
The remarkable headline above graced the pages of the American Journal of the Medical Sciences in April 1849. In case
Remarkable recoveries
A case for Dr Coffin
In 1837 a Canadian teenager tripped over while walking back to his parents’ house. The accident did not hurt much,
Remarkable recoveries
The electric scalpel
Earlier this week I spent a day in an operating theatre watching heart surgery. It was one of the most
Hidden dangers
An ‘unnatural propensity’ and its perils
Until the early twentieth century, medicine had little to say about heart disease. Although the best specialists of the nineteenth
Bewildering research
Don’t try this at home
The medical experiments of earlier centuries often look odd to the modern eye. So odd, in fact, that it’s easy
Bewildering research, Unusual treatments
Lettuce, a Class A drug
A post last week referred to Andrew Duncan, founder of the Medical and Philosophical Commentaries, the first regular medical journal
Unfortunate predicaments
Aleing all day, and oiling all night
Those who think that morbid obesity is a uniquely modern phenomenon should read William Wadd’s ‘Comments on Corpulency’, published over
Remarkable recoveries
Brained by a bull
A remarkable recovery from a goring by a bull was recorded in 1774 in the pages of the Medical and
Hidden dangers
Stay of execution?
An angry Dr Tuson from Fitzrovia writes to the London Medical Journal in 1831. He begins with an apology: Though I