The electric scalpel
Earlier this week I spent a day in an operating theatre watching heart surgery. It was one of the most […]
Remarkable recoveries
Hidden dangers
An ‘unnatural propensity’ and its perils
Until the early twentieth century, medicine had little to say about heart disease. Although the best specialists of the nineteenth
Bewildering research
Don’t try this at home
The medical experiments of earlier centuries often look odd to the modern eye. So odd, in fact, that it’s easy
Bewildering research, Unusual treatments
Lettuce, a Class A drug
A post last week referred to Andrew Duncan, founder of the Medical and Philosophical Commentaries, the first regular medical journal
Unfortunate predicaments
Aleing all day, and oiling all night
Those who think that morbid obesity is a uniquely modern phenomenon should read William Wadd’s ‘Comments on Corpulency’, published over
Remarkable recoveries
Brained by a bull
A remarkable recovery from a goring by a bull was recorded in 1774 in the pages of the Medical and
Hidden dangers
Stay of execution?
An angry Dr Tuson from Fitzrovia writes to the London Medical Journal in 1831. He begins with an apology: Though I
Horrifying operations, Unfortunate predicaments
Almost to the ground
An article from an 1831 edition of the London Medical Gazette begins unpromisingly: Enlargement of the testes, scrotal tumors, and hydrocele,
Bewildering research, Mysterious illnesses
The case of the luminous patients
In June 1842 the Provincial Medical Journal devoted no less than ten pages to a long essay by the physician
Horrifying operations
Speaking of tongues
The Scottish surgeon James Syme (1799-1870) has been described as the boldest and most original operator of the end of