Hardwicke’s Science-Gossip was a monthly publication that brought science (mostly botany, zoology and geology) to the masses. Science-Gossip provided short summaries of scientific studies (mostly botany and zoology); advice to the hobbyist on raising reptiles, catching rare butterflies, building a microscope, etc; and most interesting, pages and pages of correspondence, answering readers’ questions and reprinting […]
About: Amboceptor
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Posts by Amboceptor:
The Rouen Institute for Human Enlargement: a dream unfulfilled
From the Canada Lancet (June 1901), vol. XXXIV, no. 9, p. 550: An eccentric millionaire, whose amiable fad would have met with the cordial approval of Frederick the Great, has recently died and bequeathed to the municipality of Rouen an annual sum of 100,000 francs, for the purpose of providing a dowry to a couple of […]
Further studies on wallaby tendon
Wallaby tendon is not just a useful material for surgical sutures.; it can be analyzed for its elastic properties in comparison to the tendons of other animals, and can be used as a model in surgical studies. Physiologists have also been interested in the kinetics of kangaroo and wallaby hopping, to address issues such as […]
Nurse, please pass the 27-gauge wallaby tendon
The Australasian Medical Gazette was a normal medical journal in most respects, with the addition of occasional features relevant to the unique concerns of the doctor practicing in rural Australia (or New Zealand). These ranged from advice on how to avoid being outcompeted by fraudulently subsidized Friendly Societies in the western goldfields, to the report […]
Dapanophobia: “Morbid penuriousness”
To those who compile collections of trivial and spurious words for phobias: here’s a brand new old one to add to the list. From the November 19, 1904 New York Medical Journal, volume LXXX (issue 21), page 987: Web searches for “dapanophobia” finds absolutely nothing, except for this one paragraph published in various venues. “δαπανοφοβία” finds nothing […]
The diseased, skeptical (spinning?) eyes of Tasmania (1899)
These illustrations come from “Some of the Rarer Forms of Eye Disease,” G. H. Hogg, The Australasian Medical Gazette (July 20, 1899), vol. XVIII, no. 6, pp. 282-285. In A1, we see the distressing phenomenon in which a patient’s eyes turn into pinwheels and spin uncontrollably. In C, D, and E, the patient’s face adopts […]
The high-carb milky lifestyle of Inuit infants (1878)
The Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris’s Bois du Boulogne, now a children’s amusement park, was founded in 1860 as one of Europe’s first major zoos. In 1877 the directors followed the lead of Carl Hagenbeck and started incorporating ethnological exhibits, of humans indigenous to the strange lands being opened up by imperialism. These attracted huge crowds as […]
Case report: Big guy dies
A Case of Polysarcia, reported by Dr. Ira D. Hopkins in the Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal (November 1861), volume I(4):114-115: Richard Holmes, colored, a cook, aged 41 years, was admitted into the Utica City Hospital on the 14th of August, 1861, suffering from polysarcia, of which he died September 3d, 1861. He was 5 1/2 feet […]
The Nose, Cold Feet, “Tobacco” Heart, and Convallaria Majalis
One of 1900’s top contenders for “Article Title of the Year”, in the medical category, must have been The Nose, Cold Feet, “Tobacco” Heart, and Convallaria Majalis, by H.S. Purdon of the Belfast Hospital for Skin Diseases. Published in the Dublin Journal of Medical Science (August 1900), vol. CXX, pp. 110-112, the title may sound […]
The man who drank enough beer to drown 275 men
This unattributed piece in the Brooklyn Medical Journal (1888) (Volume 1, No. 5, pp. 406-408), reporting on C.A. Crampton’s magisterial USDA report on beer, wine and cider adulterants, contains several odd comparisons. First we learn that Americans’ consumption of beer has risen tremendously since the Van Buren administration, though it still lags that of competitors. […]