My line of work has brought me in contact with more than a few schizophrenics over the years, both as story subjects and as correspondents. I’ve become quite familiar with the seemingly impenetrable logic by which such people try to make sense of the world, and how their off-tangent worldviews occasionally lead to the commission […]
Tags:Jared Lee Loughner·medical history·medical science·public health·schizophrenia
One of Microkhan’s top Alaskan correspondents recently alerted me to the existence of Project Facade, one of the eeriest and coolest art projects to be found on The Tubes. The endeavor is tough to describe in a pithy sentence or two, so please bear with me as I try: Project Facade is one artist’s attempt […]
Did the codpiece come into vogue because a bunch of Italian counts were trying to conceal their fights against syphilis? An Australian doctor makes the case: The treatment of the disease was for the most part empirical with multiple agents applied locally, which along with the bulky dressings would give large frontal bulges, impossible to […]
Tags:codpieces·Italy·Larry Blackmon·medical history·music·Renaissance history
Medical history’s dustbin is full of well-meaning treatments that were basically guaranteed to increase a patient’s misery. Several months back, for example, we wrote about the use of Torpillage to treat victims of shell shock. Now, via the journals of the great Irish explorer John Palliser, comes news of a 19th-century Native American rabies remedy […]
Tags:asbestos·John Palliser·medical history·Native Americans·rabies·wolves
