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Thomas Morris

Welcome to the internet’s most extensive collection of weird and wonderful stories from the history of medicine.

Frontispiece &ldquo;A man, sore wounded — yet living.&rdquo;More than five hundred strange and unsettling cases from five centuries of medical misadventure: curious diagnoses, improbable survivals, and surgical tall tales — all genuine excerpts from early medical journals, originally collected for fun while researching The Matter of the Heart.<br>Browse the archive by category, search by keyword, or click the button below to summon a case at random.<br>Not sure where to start?<br>Surprise me ☞ or read the greatest hits ↓

№ I · Where to start<br>Greatest Hits

A selection of the most extraordinary stories in the collection — six cases to begin with.

1 № I<br>The mystery of the exploding teeth<br>A Pennsylvania clergyman’s toothache ended with a bang — literally. His tooth exploded like a pistol shot, and he wasn’t the only victim of this baffling phenomenon.<br>Mysterious illnesses<br>→ 2 № II<br>She swallowed a mouse<br>A three-year-old fell asleep with breadcrumbs in her mouth. A hungry mouse ventured too far. What happened next is every bit as horrible as you’d imagine.<br>Unfortunate predicaments<br>→ 3 № III<br>The tapeworm trap<br>An American inventor’s highly original approach to eradicating intestinal parasites — using cheese as bait.<br>Bewildering research<br>→ 4 № IV<br>The pork cylinder<br>A Frenchman walked into a urologist’s consulting room and announced that he had a pig’s nerve inside his bladder. The truth turned out to be even stranger.<br>Unfortunate predicaments<br>→ 5 № V<br>The pigeon’s rump cure<br>A unique treatment recommended by a nineteenth-century German physician — involving a live bird.<br>Unusual treatments<br>→ 6 № VI<br>The spermatorrh&oelig;a alarm<br>Victorian doctors banish the scourge of self-abuse — as only the Victorians could.<br>Primitive equipment

№ II · Browse the archive<br>Explore by Category

Over five hundred stories sorted into twelve categories of medical misadventure, wonder & horror.

Unfortunate Predicaments<br>125 stories

Patients who found themselves in situations no textbook could have anticipated.<br>a taste —<br>The perils of a sneeze<br>Painfully obvious<br>Specific gravity

Remarkable Recoveries<br>108 stories

Against the odds, these patients survived — thanks to medical treatment, or despite it.<br>a taste —<br>A shot in the dark<br>The miller’s daughter<br>Difficult to swallow

Mysterious Illnesses<br>87 stories

Baffling symptoms, inexplicable conditions and diagnoses that defied explanation.<br>a taste —<br>Metal in her mammaries<br>The galley slave and the barrel hoop<br>A mystery diagnosis

Horrifying Operations<br>70 stories

Astonishing tales of surgery before anaesthesia.<br>a taste —<br>The bacon factory eyelid transplant<br>A triumph of surgery<br>The golden pin

Unusual Treatments<br>70 stories

Remedies ranging from the inventive to the utterly deranged.<br>a taste —<br>The cabbage catastrophe<br>The carrot cataplasm<br>A gallon a day keeps the doctor away

Notable Deaths<br>43 stories

Demises both instructive and improbable.<br>a taste —<br>Frightened to death<br>Death by onanism<br>A near miss

Hidden Dangers<br>40 stories

Everyday objects and innocent activities with lethal potential.<br>a taste —<br>Stand well back<br>Hooked<br>A curious surgical case

Bewildering Research<br>33 stories

Experiments and investigations that raise questions about the experimenter.<br>a taste —<br>Scalpel, suture and Swedish turnips<br>The other Horatio Nelson<br>Do no harm

Medical Shenanigans<br>27 stories

Fraud, rivalry, skulduggery and professional misconduct.<br>a taste —<br>The surgeon and the smugglers<br>The heart surgeon and the Nazis<br>Libel and lithotomy

Prodigies & Monsters<br>27 stories

Extraordinary bodies, impossible births and anatomical marvels.<br>a taste —<br>The woman with two wombs<br>He swallowed a serpent<br>A late arrival

Primitive Equipment<br>13 stories

The terrifying instruments and improvised tools of early medicine.<br>a taste —<br>A tale of two inventions<br>Under the skin

Dodgy Predictions<br>5 stories

Confident medical forecasts that aged spectacularly badly.<br>a taste —<br>The other Horatio Nelson

№ III · Card catalogue<br>Search the Archive

Looking for something specific? Search all five hundred-plus stories by keyword, ailment or implement.

Search<br>Holdings500+ cases<br>LanguagesEN · FR · LAT<br>Earliest1543<br>Latest1962<br>Spansfive centuries<br>Or browse the complete list →

Many of these stories were collected in The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine, published by Penguin. The archive also grew out of research for The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations.

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