Medical Curiosities
An archive of medical misadventure, wonder & horror —
drawn from five centuries of real cases.
Welcome to the internet’s most extensive collection of weird and wonderful stories from the history of medicine.
More than five hundred strange and unsettling cases from five centuries of medical misadventure: curious diagnoses, improbable survivals, and surgical tall tales — all genuine excerpts from early medical journals, originally collected for fun while researching The Matter of the Heart.
Browse the archive by category, search by keyword, or click the button below to summon a case at random.
Not sure where to start?
Greatest Hits
A selection of the most extraordinary stories in the collection — six cases to begin with.
The mystery of the exploding teeth
A Pennsylvania clergyman’s toothache ended with a bang — literally. His tooth exploded like a pistol shot, and he wasn’t the only victim of this baffling phenomenon.
She swallowed a mouse
A three-year-old fell asleep with breadcrumbs in her mouth. A hungry mouse ventured too far. What happened next is every bit as horrible as you’d imagine.
The tapeworm trap
An American inventor’s highly original approach to eradicating intestinal parasites — using cheese as bait.
The pork cylinder
A Frenchman walked into a urologist’s consulting room and announced that he had a pig’s nerve inside his bladder. The truth turned out to be even stranger.
The pigeon’s rump cure
A unique treatment recommended by a nineteenth-century German physician — involving a live bird.
The spermatorrhœa alarm
Victorian doctors banish the scourge of self-abuse — as only the Victorians could.
Explore by Category
Over five hundred stories sorted into twelve categories of medical misadventure, wonder & horror.
Unfortunate Predicaments
Patients who found themselves in situations no textbook could have anticipated.
- The perils of a sneeze
- Painfully obvious
- Specific gravity
Remarkable Recoveries
Against the odds, these patients survived — thanks to medical treatment, or despite it.
- A shot in the dark
- The miller’s daughter
- Difficult to swallow
Mysterious Illnesses
Baffling symptoms, inexplicable conditions and diagnoses that defied explanation.
- Metal in her mammaries
- The galley slave and the barrel hoop
- A mystery diagnosis
Horrifying Operations
Astonishing tales of surgery before anaesthesia.
- The bacon factory eyelid transplant
- A triumph of surgery
- The golden pin
Unusual Treatments
Remedies ranging from the inventive to the utterly deranged.
- The cabbage catastrophe
- The carrot cataplasm
- A gallon a day keeps the doctor away
Notable Deaths
Demises both instructive and improbable.
- Frightened to death
- Death by onanism
- A near miss
Hidden Dangers
Everyday objects and innocent activities with lethal potential.
- Stand well back
- Hooked
- A curious surgical case
Bewildering Research
Experiments and investigations that raise questions about the experimenter.
- Scalpel, suture and Swedish turnips
- The other Horatio Nelson
- Do no harm
Medical Shenanigans
Fraud, rivalry, skulduggery and professional misconduct.
- The surgeon and the smugglers
- The heart surgeon and the Nazis
- Libel and lithotomy
Prodigies & Monsters
Extraordinary bodies, impossible births and anatomical marvels.
- The woman with two wombs
- He swallowed a serpent
- A late arrival
Primitive Equipment
The terrifying instruments and improvised tools of early medicine.
- A tale of two inventions
- Under the skin
Dodgy Predictions
Confident medical forecasts that aged spectacularly badly.
- The other Horatio Nelson
Search the Archive
Looking for something specific? Search all five hundred-plus stories by keyword, ailment or implement.
Many of these stories were collected in The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine, published by Penguin. The archive also grew out of research for The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations.