Cosmetic(s) surgery
This unexpected discovery was reported in a French journal, the Répertoire Generale d’Anatomie, in 1827. The patient was treated by […]
Unfortunate predicaments
Medical shenanigans, Mysterious illnesses
Asleep while she gave birth
Things have been rather quiet on this blog in recent weeks, so apologies if you’ve been missing your regular fix
Notable deaths
The poison taker
There is a long and often honourable history of self-experimentation in medicine. Medical pioneers have often been unwilling or unable
Unfortunate predicaments
Rare and peculiar
“How did it happen?” is a question every emergency physician will ask hundreds if not thousands of times during their
William Harvey at the Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians in London, which celebrates its 500th anniversary later this year, is currently staging a small
Horrifying operations, Primitive equipment
The ear drill
You’ve heard of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut; but what about a drill (or rather two drills) to
Unusual treatments
Mr Trought’s tobacco enema
In June 1828 the Lancet published a pair of short case histories that contemporary readers must have found rather confusing.
Primitive equipment
Plagiarising the past
In 1850 a doctor from New Buckenham in Norfolk, Horace Howard, submitted this short case report to The Lancet: The
Mysterious illnesses
An enormous concretion
At a meeting of the Pathological Society of London in 1855, members were shown a specimen that might have been
Mysterious illnesses, Primitive equipment
The spermatorrhoea alarm
In 1843 the Provincial Medical Journal published a landmark paper by Dr W.H. Ranking from Suffolk. It was a ‘landmark’