At least twice a year one or other of the newspapers prints a story about one of those mysterious apparitions in which the likeness of Jesus is burnt on to a piece of toast, or can be seen (if you squint) in the seeds of a watermelon. In 1828 the London Medical Gazette reported a strange Napoleonic equivalent – thirteen … Read more
Category: Prodigies and monsters
The supernumerary leg
Before the advent of antenatal screening, birth abnormalities were far commoner than they are today. Early medical journals had a particular fascination with these ‘monstrosities’, printing regular reports of children born without limbs or with anomalous or absent internal organs. Reading these reports today, there is often little sense that they were printed for any inherent scientific interest, but to … Read more
Monsieur Mangetout
Medical journals usually pride themselves on presenting cutting-edge research, but in 1851 The Medical Examiner reported a case which was already half a century old. It’s not clear what they thought it added to contemporary scholarship, but it’s certainly a good story.
Charles Demery, a native of Benche, on the frontiers of Poland, aged 21, was brought to the prison … Read more
Centipedes in your bacon
Some truly bizarre goings-on were reported at the Exeter meeting of the Provincial Surgical and Medical Association in 1842. A Dr Davis, of Presteign, made this report:
A boy, fifteen years of age, the son of a labourer named Griffiths, living in the village of Bucknill, near Knighton, had for some months complained of pain in his stomach, which did … Read more
Half man, half snake
Until the late nineteenth century, many people remained convinced that emotional experiences during pregnancy could have major psychological or even physical effects on the unborn child. An 1839 edition of an American periodical, The Family Magazine, contains an extreme example, a young man called Robert H. Copeland who exhibited himself at freak-shows and county fairs:
This most singular being, … Read more
The worm: a horror story
Sometimes in early medical journals a case history begins conventionally enough, before turning into something startlingly unexpected. This is from Medical Essays and Observations, 1782:
In February last a young Man was wounded in a Duel with a small Sword, which entred about four Inches below the right Nipple, and a little towards the Back; by probing the Wound, … Read more
The child that cried in the womb
Remarkable news reaches The Medico-Chirurgical Review (June 1822) from Prussia:
Crying of the Foetus in Utero. A lady, during pregnancy, had experienced some distresses of mind, and had had several discharges of the liquor amnii. In the eighth month of pregnancy while in bed, and while several of her friends and relations were supping in her bed-room, the cries of … Read more