Medicine, Health and Society

Vicarious menstruation

by Helen King March 10, 2012

Historical accounts of ‘male menstruation’ have already been discussed on this blog by Lisa Smith. But there is another aspect of the history of menstruation that is fascinating to a modern reader: the phenomenon of ‘vicarious menstruation’, in which a woman bleeds regularly from another orifice, or even from a wound. While modern medicine still [...]

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“One night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury:” Syphilis and “Syphilophobes” in Early Modern England

by Lindsey Fitzharris March 1, 2012

Before the discovery of penicillin in 1928, syphilis was an incurable disease. Its symptoms were as terrifying as they were unrelenting. Those who suffered from it long enough could expect to develop unsightly skin ulcers, paralysis, gradual blindness, dementia and “saddle nose,” a grotesque deformity which occurs when the bridge of the nose caves into [...]

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What makes good historical TV?

by Helen King February 23, 2012

By Helen King (W&M Regular Contributor) How do you like your history on television? Do you like to hear from ‘talking heads’, or would you rather see a docudrama recreating a scene from the past? Do you get a bit fed up with the standard scene in which the presenter turns up at a museum [...]

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Fear of flute girls

by Helen King February 16, 2012

Phobias go back a long way. They are fears that can be very debilitating, and although sufferers know that the fear is irrational and excessive, the phobia can be very difficult to overcome. Sometimes phobias seem to have been constant over time. An example would be gephyrophobia, ‘fear of bridges’; yes, the Greeks had [...]

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Where’s Hippocrates?

by Helen King January 15, 2012

By Helen King (W&M Monthly Contributor) Do you know the ‘Where’s Wally?’ series (in the US and Canada, ‘Where’s Waldo?’)? Readers are faced with a busy scene and are asked to find Wally, distinguished by his red-and-white striped shirt, bobble hat and glasses. I’m Visiting Professor at the Peninsula Medical and Dental School in Truro, [...]

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Goya’s Madhouse

by Holly Tucker December 28, 2011

By Nabeela Ahmad (Vanderbilt University) In 1789, the French National Assembly proposed a radical document, “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen,” which delineated what would later become the basis of the French Constitution. In 1790, the Assembly released several decrees to ensure provisions within the declaration. The following decree provides a startling [...]

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An Epidemic Caused by Alcohol: Beaune, 1746

by Lisa Smith December 21, 2011

By Lisa Smith (W&M Regular Contributor) After the Battle of Rocoux (11 October, 1746), several Dutch prisoners of war were held in Beaune (Burgundy). Townsmen were recruited as guards, with local lawyers and physicians – men of responsibility – as captains. Physician Vivant-Augustin Ganiare (1698-1781) expressed concerns about the prisoners being a potential source of [...]

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Poisoning in the Hungry Forties

by Holly Tucker December 12, 2011

By Kaitlyn Berry (Vanderbilt University) My tender, pretty, smiling babes, With poison I did slay. And after that I did cruel take My husband’s life away This was the chant coming from the crowd of 10,000 that gathered to witness the execution of Sarah Chesham. Chesham, who had a reputation in Essex for [...]

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Manly Menstruation?

by Lisa Smith December 5, 2011

By Lisa Smith (W&M Regular Contributor) In 1780, physician M. Carrere wrote a letter to the French Royal Society of Medicine describing the unusual case of a twenty-five year old miller, Jacques Sola, who bled monthly from his right little finger. Sola became ill with dysentery and peripneumonia in 1764. The cause? Sola’s blood flow had [...]

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Drinking Blood and Eating Flesh: Corpse Medicine in Early Modern England

by Lindsey Fitzharris December 2, 2011

By Lindsey Fitzharris (W&M Contributor) In order to restore youth to an aging body, the fifteenth-century practitioner, Marsilio Ficino, advised: There is a common and ancient opinion that certain prophetic women who are popularly called ‘screech-owls’ suck the blood of infants as a means, insofar as they can, of growing young again. Why shouldn’t our old people, [...]

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The Leper’s Legendary Decay

by marrilynn December 1, 2011

Zombies are now a horror staple that spans mediums, and justly so. Zombies combine our intellectual fear of social decay and loss of self with our instinctual horror at the notion of a disease that rots flesh and threatens to consume anyone who dares go near those suffering from it. As contamination spreads, the disease [...]

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A History of the Barber’s Pole

by Lindsey Fitzharris October 17, 2011

By Lindsey Fitzharris (W&M Contributor) The history of the barber’s pole is as intertwined with the history of the barber-surgeons as the red and white stripes that adorn it. The history of the barber’s pole is as intertwined with the history of the barber-surgeons as the red and white stripes that adorn it. Barber-surgeons were [...]

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Cutting for the Stone: the Case of Stephen Pollard

by Lindsey Fitzharris September 28, 2011

By Lindsey Fitzharris (W&M Contributor) If you visit the Gordon Museum at Guy’s Hospital in London, you will see a small bladder stone—no bigger than 3 centimetres across. Besides the fact that it has been sliced open to reveal concentric circles within, it is entirely unremarkable in appearance. Yet, this tiny stone was the source [...]

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Top Five Uses In Ancient Times For That Wonder Drug – Honey

by Holly Tucker November 5, 2010

By Vicki León The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians – even the Babylonians couldn’t get enough of the gooey golden stuff. Sugar craving, you say? That wasn’t the half of it. 1. Honey was used to cure almost everything – and with good reason. Its antibacterial properties were far superior for burns, abscesses, and wounds than [...]

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Dangerous Curves: Maria Gaetana Agnesi

by Holly Tucker September 21, 2010

By Jennifer Ouellette We may bemoan the dearth of women in mathematics these days, but throughout history, they were actively discouraged from such intellectual pursuits. Still, occasionally a woman would defy social mores and eagerly embrace the world of numbers. It helped if they had a privileged upbringing, like Maria Gaetana Agnesi, born to a [...]

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