In June 1879 the Chicago Telegraph made quite a splash with a story published under this headline:
Probably the most wonderful phenomenon that has ever come under the observation of the medical fraternity of this city developed itself at the Montcalm House, on Erie street, in the person of a boy named Herbert G. Schwartz. Schwartz senior is a farmer, … Read more
Here’s a case which wouldn’t surprise a modern medic, but which caused considerable puzzlement when it occurred in the first half of the nineteenth century: a patient who died while being shaved. This tale, first reported in Marryat’s London Metropolitan Magazine, was cited by one Dr Joseph Comstock in a letter to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in … Read more
Exciting news from the world of medical technology was reported in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1850. The following announcement was a late example of the mania for galvanic (i.e., electrical) medicine which began in the eighteenth century. For many decades, after the investigation of electrical phenomena began in earnest, electric current was believed to be a panacea … Read more
It being Shrove Tuesday, I thought I’d write a short post about pancakes. Not how to make them, or the reasons for eating them today, but their little-known nineteenth-century medical uses. Yes, really.
Oddly, the pancake enjoyed a short-lived vogue in the world of gynaecology and obstetrics. Why it should have been particularly associated with female reproductive disorders is anybody’s … Read more
A regular feature of any hospital accident and emergency department is the patient who turns up in an embarrassing and self-inflicted predicament. When questioned about the nature of the injury and how it came about, they come up with an utterly implausible explanation. One example: “I was standing on a chair in the nude, trying to close the window, and … Read more
Every experienced midwife will have a story about the patient who didn’t even realise she was pregnant until she went into labour. So-called cryptic pregnancies are fairly common – a spectacular example occurred a few years ago when a British soldier on active duty in Afghanistan suddenly went into labour and gave birth at the infirmary of Camp Bastion.
In … Read more
Some stories are just too good to be true. This astonishing tale appeared in the Medical and Surgical Reporter in 1867, repeating an unlikely-sounding yarn first reported in a Canadian newspaper, and involving a Dr Hamilton from Hamilton City in Ontario:
Some weeks since the advice of Dr. Hamilton was procured in the case of a young lad who was … Read more
An alarming case was revealed to a meeting of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London in November 1815, and reported in the Transactions of the society early the following year. It provides a good example of the fact that new medicines often carry dramatically unexpected side-effects. A Dr Albers of Bremen reported the following:
The skin of a woman, … Read more
Physician, chemist, writer and revolutionary: Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) was a remarkable man in a remarkable age. Arguably the greatest physician America had yet produced, he was an early and tireless advocate for vaccination, an authority on epidemic disease and wrote the first American textbook on mental health. He was also controversial: during a dreadful outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia … Read more
Medics and their journals have always loved a curiosity, however long ago it occurred. This case was reported in the Medical and Surgical Journal in 1871, more than a century after the ghastly events it relates had taken place:
John Stetson, aged thirty-eight, farmer, also accustomed to slaughter cattle, July 19, 1768, in a paroxysm of insanity secreted himself in … Read more
