The egested intestine
The Annals of Medicine for the Year 1802 are the source of today’s extraordinary goings-on. This case was reported by John […]
Unfortunate predicaments
April 2017
Remarkable recoveries
Pitched upon a pitchfork
After countless hours reading dreadful stories in medical journals I’m rarely shocked by a case, but this one [no need
Hidden dangers
Death by barley
Nineteenth-century medical journals are not short of ghastly occupational injuries. Factories, building sites and the new railways were frightening places,
Dodgy predictions
An X-ray vision
In December 1863 a New York physician, Samuel Ward Francis, sat down to write a letter to The Medical and Surgical
Horrifying operations
A chainsaw to the spine
In the early nineteenth century surgery was a primitive affair, generally limited to a few commonly performed operations. Most people
Remarkable recoveries
Spirits go straight to your head
I recently stumbled across this intriguing snippet in John Cooke’s A Treatise on Nervous Diseases (1824): I am informed by
Broken glass and boiled cabbage
Here’s a case reported in the London Medical Gazette in 1839 which we must file under ‘unbelievably stupid things done
Horrifying operations
The eye fungus
My headline is somewhat misleading, for the ‘fungus’ referred to in today’s article, published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical
The man who peed a bullet
Gunshot wounds have always been a particular challenge for the medic. Some of the oldest surgical manuals contain advice on
Unfortunate predicaments
Cart to heart
In 1837 the Dublin Medical Journal published a short article by a Dr Lees entitled, simply, ‘Wounds of the Heart’.