A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities [Hardcover]

Jan Bondeson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997

Long ago, curiosities were arranged in cabinets for display: a dried mermaid might be next to a giant's shinbone, the skeletons of conjoined twins beside an Egyptian mummy. In ten essays, Jan Bondeson brings a physician's diagnostic skills to various unexpected, gruesome, and extraordinary aspects of the history of medicine: spontaneous human combustion, colonies of snakes and frogs living in a person's stomach, kings and emperors devoured by lice, vicious tribes of tailed men, and the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal.

Bondeson tells the story of Mary Toft, who gained notoriety in 1726 when she allegedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits. King George I, the Prince of Wales, and the court physicians attributed these monstrous births to a "maternal impression" because Mary had longed for a meal of rabbit while pregnant. Bondeson explains that the fallacy of maternal impressions, conspicuous in the novels of Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, and Charles Dickens, has ancient roots in Chinese and Babylonian manuscripts.

Bondeson also presents the tragic case of Julia Pastrana, a Mexican Indian woman with thick hair growing over her body and a massive overgrowth of the gums that gave her a simian or ape-like appearance. Called the Ape Woman, she was exhibited all over the world. After her death in 1860, Julia's husband, who had also been her impresario, had her body mummified and continued to exhibit it throughout Europe. Bondeson tracked the mummy down and managed to diagnose Julia Pastrana's condition as the result of a rare genetic syndrome.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The history of medicine is a tale of human attempts to understand, explain, and predict the workings of nature. Sometimes those attempts can take strange turns, as Jan Bondeson shows in this diverting collection of medical oddments. A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities takes in matters such as stomach-dwelling snakes, not-unjustified fears of being buried alive, gigantism, lice-borne diseases, spontaneous combustion, and assorted monstrosities. Bondeson, a London-based medical researcher, combs out-of-the-way archives to populate his essays with strange case studies, among them the story of the California Indian Julia Pastrana, "a normal, intelligent woman of gentle disposition" who, owing to her unfortunate werewolf-like appearance, spent much of her life as a circus freak. Bondeson retells Pastrana's tragic tale, and many others, with sympathy and imagination.

From School Library Journal

YA?This clutch of essays covers topics one is likely to see in supermarket tabloids: spontaneous combustion, premature burial, tailed people, and serpents living within the body. Bondeson presents these topics in their historical perspective, based on copious research and illustrated with archival drawings, and then explains the more likely cause for the phenomenon or belief. His dry wit makes for entertaining reading. The remaining essays describe some documented cases of human oddities?a giant, a two-headed boy, an extremely hairy and deformed woman, and a child no larger than a new-born infant?and illustrate the physical and emotional baggage carried by these unfortunate people. Notes for additional reading are provided for each chapter; there is no index. Thus, accessibility as a research tool will rely on detailed subject cataloguing, but the book is worth the effort because it provides teens with a source for accurate medical information about some unusual human conditions and ideas.?Carol DeAngelo, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801434319
• ISBN-13: 978-0801434310
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,469,022 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating book of amazing medical oddities, April 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities: A Compendium of the Odd, the Bizarre, and the Unexpected (Paperback)

This book is the one to read if you want to know more about spontaneous combustion, snakes living as parasites in the human stomach, two-headed people, tailed men, giants and dwarfs, and Julia Pastrana the Nondescript. The chapter on premature burial is particularly ghoulish and gruesome, and seems to have inspired a very good TV documentary on this subject, recently sent on the Discovery Channel. The author is obviously a medical scientist, but he has the rare talent of writing in a way that appeals to the general reader. Stylish, well written and with lots of amazing illustrations, this book is well worth its price.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well written interesting read!, October 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities (Hardcover)

I do not think this is the type of book you want to buy if you are looking for a book with alot of photos of "freaks". This is a book that describes amazing things that people once believed and then it gives some evidence as to whether or not it really happened. I bought a whole bunch of books related to medical curiousities and "freaks" and I find this one to be the most interesting out of all of them. It is so well written that it teaches you alot about folklore and history without boring you. In fact it is quite a page turner and I often have a hard time putting it down! I've read it over and over again.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Curious Indeed, April 16, 2007

By 

Polkadotty (Mountains of Western North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities: A Compendium of the Odd, the Bizarre, and the Unexpected (Paperback)

A compilation of some very interesting people and unexplained syndromes / phenomenon. Spontaneous human combustion, premature burial, bosom serpents (live animals taking up residence in the human body), the lousy disease which strikingly resembles today's Morgellon's scare, tailed people, giants, dwarfs, the two-headed boy of Bengal (whom today would have easily been rendered single by a simple operation), and two women of note, one who duped the most respected physicians of the day by apparently breeding "rabbits," and the tragic, touching story of bearded lady Julia Pastrana who suffered from two separate genetic disorders. Julia was a lovely woman outside of her appearance, and the way in which her life, and that of her newborn son, and especially their deaths were mishandled is criminal. The author writes in a kind, evenhanded tone that shows a respect for his subject matter and the intelligence of his readers. This book contains plenty of first-hand accounts and historical data which adds great interest and welcome factual background. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone with an interest in medicine and the strange ways nature and genes can combine. Note: The author mentions Gould and Pyle's ANOMALIES AND CURIOSITIES OF MEDICINE, published in 1897, as his inspiration for this book. This is available in its entirety on-line and is a riveting read.