The complete works

 

 

  • The electric scalpel

  • An ‘unnatural propensity’ and its perils

  • Don’t try this at home

  • Lettuce, a Class A drug

  • Aleing all day, and oiling all night

  • Brained by a bull

  • Stay of execution?

  • Almost to the ground

  • The case of the luminous patients

  • Speaking of tongues

  • Electrical anaesthesia

  • Lively and clean on the palate

  • Medicated chocolate? No thanks

  • The child with Bonaparte in his eyes

  • An exercise in futility

  • Sand, to be taken twice daily

  • The perils of toast

  • Hard to stomach

  • Heal thyself

  • Death by cold water

  • A fatal nose job

  • The bird and the bees

  • Roger ‘two urinals’ Clerk

  • The mystery of the poisonous cheese

  • Le hundred-up club

  • Nutmegs is the best spice for students

  • The supernumerary leg

  • Monsieur Mangetout

  • Put a bandage on it

  • The black sheep

  • Poisoning pooches in the park

  • Portrait of a quack

  • Medical qualifications: optional

  • The self-inflicted lithotomy

  • Chess and phrenology

  • Do no harm – unless it’s a criminal

  • A 19th-century doctor’s guide to etiquette

  • Such is the fortitude of females

  • The rocket man

  • The cod-liver oil binge

  • The self-performed caesarian

  • Worms on the pillow

  • Opium – perfect for babies

  • All flesh is grass

  • Fingers crossed

  • All’s well that ends well

  • It makes you go blind, you know

  • Mummies and rhubarb

  • Adventures in digestion

  • The dreadful mortification

  • The winged ones: insects in the stomach

  • Leeches: for external and internal use

  • The perpetual patient

  • Nil by mouth

  • Brain of hare and turd of dog

  • Wrapped in a dead sheep

  • A fright for sore eyes

  • The original Lead Belly

  • Medicated cigarettes: the new panacea

  • The port-wine enema

  • The human pincushion

  • Cycling will give you heart disease

  • Wine, the great healer

  • Anaesthesia for lions (and bears)

  • The guillotine – life after death?

  • The woman who could smell with her feet

  • Spiders in her eyes

  • Breaking news: swallowing knives is bad for you

  • The petrol cocktail: a cure for cholera

  • Smoking’s good for you – as long as you’re a priest

  • Why children should never wear hats

  • Busted! A medical plagiarist exposed

  • A painful way to ‘cure’ a stammer

  • A dissertation on pus

  • Centipedes in your bacon

  • Catching a disease through an electric wire

  • In event of drowning, blow smoke up bottom

  • The Swiss disease

  • Death of a 152-year-old (or was he?)

  • The combustible countess

  • At least it got rid of the tapeworm…

  • A bad use for good wine

  • Half man, half snake

  • Difficulty getting it down

  • A bracing cure for madness

  • The twelve-hour tonsillectomy

  • Mercury snuff

  • “Catch anything, darling?” “Only Granny”

  • On leeches, and how to catch them

  • John Keats: Ode to a Black Eye

  • The hearing-aid chair

  • Your cooker will give you typhoid

  • The woman who could read with her stomach

  • A bit of a headache

  • Heart disease? Have you tried using a swing?

  • The man who fought a duel in his sleep

  • Give that man a medal

  • Hemlock and millipedes

  • The worm: a horror story

  • Curing conjunctivitis with frogspawn

4 thoughts on “The complete works”

  1. Larry Drown

    Thank you for publishing this excellent and fascinating blog.

    Many of us, myself included, often long for the “good old days”. Here are many examples of certain unpleasant shortcomings of medical practice in those times.

    Reply
  3. Jessica Miller

    Thank you so much for the time you have put into making this type of infomation readable and easy to access.

    “Back in the day” they sure did not have the luxuries we now have: pain killers, ICU and the knowledge etc.

    As a person who has experienced accidents equal to several you have mentioned (horse related, some things do not change), I am especially grateful for our modern advances.

    Thank you for all you do. The website was great fun while healing. Keep up the good works.

    Reply
  4. Jessica Miller

    I am hoping all is going well in your neighborhood. I was wondering if it is possible that you have ever come across some situations in your researches, similar as to what we are dealing with now but smaller, that had been documented and hopefully on a positive note, “contained”?

    Reply

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