A likely story
The French surgeon Jean Civiale was one of the most significant figures in the history of urology, the branch of […]
Unfortunate predicaments
Point-blank range
Being shot in the head with a revolver is not exactly a minor injury. But in 1875 the Medical Record published this
Horrifying operations
“Oh, I’ll tell you another time”
In 1811 the novelist Fanny Burney underwent a mastectomy for suspected breast cancer. The operation was a total success: she
Mysterious illnesses
A disarming experience
The French surgeon Alphonse Guérin is hardly a household name today – but for a brief period in the late
Horrifying operations
An unusual method
At the 1887 Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association a surgeon from Sunderland, James Murphy, walked on stage brandishing
Notable deaths, Prodigies and monsters
The greatest phenomenon that nature has known
In 1849 a Spanish journal, La crónica de los hospitales, published a case supposed to have occurred some forty years
Born under a manger
In 1863 a surgeon from the small German town of Gräfenhainichen, Herr Geissler, wrote to one of the Berlin journals to
A practical joke
Some of the greatest advances in nineteenth-century surgery were made by military surgeons. British surgeons were not exactly short of
The wandering needle
In 1889 a surgeon from the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin, Kendal Franks, wrote a notable case report for the British
Remarkable recoveries
Get Out Of Jail Free
In 1823 a prominent London physician, John Ayrton Paris, published a book in collaboration with a barrister called J. S.