Can the human body spontaneously catch fire? For many years people believed that it could. Spontaneous human combustion was a topic that fascinated medics and the general public for many years. In the early nineteenth century it was widely believed to be a genuine phenomenon, caused by some quirk of human physiology (I’ve previously written about one celebrated case from … Read more
Month: October 2018
Shafted
Some time ago I wrote about Thomas Tipple, a Londoner who was impaled by his own carriage in 1812. The shaft of the vehicle passed right through his chest, causing massive injury, but he made a good recovery – even though he received the bare minimum of treatment. Thanks to the exceptional nature of that case, Tipple’s name remained … Read more
A remarkable dislocation
Charles White was an eminent Manchester surgeon of the eighteenth century. As a young man he studied anatomy in London with William Hunter, and became friendly with William’s brother John, the outstanding medical scientist of the age. Returning to Manchester, he set up in private practice and co-founded the city’s infirmary in 1752. He also attained considerable fame … Read more
Divine’s intervention
If you enjoy these stories of medical mishaps and surgical drama, why not buy my book? The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth is out now, published by Transworld. The American edition will be published on November 20th.
In 1899 the Atlanta surgeon Dr Kinsman Divine dropped dead while performing an operation. The procedure was nearly complete, and he was putting … Read more
The viper’s kiss
The year is 1840, and The Lancet brings us this snippet of medical news from Germany:
A man who, from his youth, had been accustomed to catch and tame vipers, brought two, on the 24th March, to a shopkeeper. While playing with one of the animals, he put it in his mouth…
I bet you can’t guess what happened next.… Read more
Commercial break
Just a quick update on a few exciting developments. My new book The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth will be on sale very soon. It’s a collection of my favourite medical curiosities, including some of the hilarious, bizarre or otherwise notable stories featured on this blog – many of them revised and expanded, and with a number of illustrations reproduced … Read more
The pork cylinder
A few days ago I was reading an article about foreign bodies in the bladder – for what better way to while away a dull afternoon? In 1897 a doctor from Philadelphia, Francis Packard, wrote an analysis of more than 200 cases, all of which had been published in medical journals in the preceding fifty years. The range of objects … Read more