At a meeting of the Edinburgh Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1850, a Professor Miller spoke about an unusual case from his own practice. The patient was suffering from what the doctor described as an inguinal aneurysm* – a balloon-like swelling in an artery in the groin:
The man was about sixty years of age, robust and florid; he had been … Read more
In 1875 the American surgeon Charles Brigham recorded this wince-inducing case from his practice in San Francisco. The details are contained in a volume he published the following year, Surgical Cases with Illustrations. It’s a notable book, one of the earliest to feature extensive photographs of the cases described. Until the mid-19th century, most medical illustrations were engravings … Read more
This blog has on several occasions chronicled the unlikely range of foreign objects which patients have managed to get stuck in various parts of their anatomy. See, for instance, the tale of the man who swallowed knives, the wine glass up the bottom, and the barometer stuck in the bladder.
But I think the following tale takes … Read more
Have you ever woken up after a night on the town, not entirely sure how the evening ended? In 1850 this happened to a Belgian fisherman who soon found out that the evening had ended very badly indeed. This case was first reported in a French ophthalmic journal before being included in the later editions of William Mackenzie’s A … Read more
The runaway winner of the prize for Best Book Title of 1833, had such an award existed, would surely have been James Russell’s Observations on the Testicles. This monograph was the work of a distinguished Scottish professor who was the leading trainer of surgeons at a period when the Edinburgh medical faculty was arguably the greatest in … Read more
In 1783 the Medical Commentaries received a striking communication on a curious subject: worms in the nose. It came from a surgeon based in Jamaica, Mr Thomas Kilgour:
A Gentleman of Montego-bay in Jamaica, aged twenty-six, of a middle stature, and robust make, about the middle of July 1777, complained for three days, of a slight obtuse pain, in his … Read more
On the 19th of May, 1846, a Dr Harris from Harrisville in Virginia was summoned to treat a young man who had got himself into a situation of some delicacy. This is how the doctor reported the case to the Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery:
He had been suffering from an attack of piles, and having been informed … Read more
In 1737 the Philosophical Transactions published a medical case so remarkable that it was still being quoted in journals well over a century later. It was reported by John Belchier, a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital in London and a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Gentleman’s Magazine from 1745 contains this anecdote about him:
One Stephen Wright, who, as a … Read more
In 1869 Dr Felix Rubio, a physician in Colombia, wrote to the Medical Times and Gazette on the subject of carbolic acid. This substance, known today as phenol, was one of the first antiseptic compounds to be used in medicine – Sir Joseph Lister was an enthusiastic proponent. Since adopting its use, Dr Rubio had found it invaluable in Colombia, … Read more
Eels seem to have featured regularly in this blog, for some reason. First there was the physician who had a shocking experience with an electric eel, and more recently we’ve had the dubious tale of the boy with an eel in his stomach.
Here’s another story involving an ingested eel, and much more besides. In 1826 The London Medical … Read more
