In 1865 a young eye surgeon from Gloucester, Robert Brudenell Carter, sent a series of case reports for publication in The Ophthalmic Review. Carter was an unusually accomplished individual whose achievements went far beyond
surgery. He performed with distinction as an army surgeon in the Crimea, and his dispatches from the conflict were published in The Times.
Carter … Read more
This is one of my favourite nineteenth-century cases, which I originally intended to include in my forthcoming book but which didn’t quite make it to the final manuscript. It was written by Dr T. Davis, from the small Worcestershire town of Upton-upon-Severn, and published in the Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association in 1834:
On Saturday evening, January … Read more
In June 1809 a French military surgeon, M. Fardeau, read a paper at a meeting of the Société de Médecine de Paris. I can find little information about M. Fardeau, but he evidently served with distinction in the Napoleonic Wars, being rewarded with membership of the Légion d’honneur for his efforts.
During the War of the Fourth Coalition Fardeau accompanied … Read more
In 1878 an elderly surgeon from Birmingham, Dickinson Crompton, was persuaded to write a short article about his early career for Guy’s Hospital Reports, the house journal of Guy’s Hospital in London. He was then 73 and almost completely blind, reporting that
I am now getting cataracts in my eyes, and at the present moment do not see … Read more
People who wear dentures sometimes lose them, as you might mislay a pair of glasses, but it’s rare to do it in quite this fashion. This case, from the 1842 volume of Guy’s Hospital Reports, was reported by one W.G. Carpenter.
Mr. H., aged 35, the subject of the present case, was an Assistant to Mr. Watts, an extensive … Read more
Here’s a tall tale from 1856, published in The Medical Times and Gazette:
Some interesting experiments were made at the Society of Arts last week by Dr. Chambers, to test the efficacy of a plant known as Guaco in Central America, or a plant nearly resembling it, as an antidote to the bite of numerous snakes.
The Society for … Read more
Most of the injuries chronicled on this blog were caused by bad luck, and a few by misadventure; but here’s one which can only be attributed to rank stupidity. In 1852 The Half-Yearly Abstract of the Medical Sciences published this report from an Italian surgeon, Signor Riali:
In December, 1848, a peasant was admitted into the hospital of Orvieto, in … Read more
The 1843 volume of The Dublin Journal of Medical Science contains this gem from Mr Robert Twiss, a surgeon from Kerry. Though it’s only a short report it made quite a stir on publication, and was still being cited in textbooks of dentistry many decades later. The first sentence is nothing if not arresting:
On the 24th of April, 1841, … Read more
In 1874 The Lancet printed this cautionary tale by Thomas Whiteside Hime, who had discovered the hard way that things aren’t always what they seem. He began his article by reminding his colleagues of the ‘great importance of carefulness in diagnosing’ – particularly where a supposed pregnancy is concerned:
Early in July last, M. G., unmarried, aged seventeen, became a … Read more
In February 1793 a small British expeditionary force under the command of the Duke of York landed at Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands. They were part of an international coalition whose aim was to invade and occupy Revolutionary France. Known as the Flanders Campaign, the effort was a failure: the French counterattacked and succeeded in annexing much of the Low … Read more
