Hitler's Forgotten Victims: The Holocaust and the Disabled provides a good survey of the subject.

Disabled people were the first to die; the people on whom gas chambers were tested. They were still being killed shortly after the war - institutions didn't stop the killing simply because the war was over (it's unclear how long this lasted for). They ( Read more... )

I have been keeping myself up to date with the modern cut and thrust of medical advances by reading about Anglo-Saxon medicine.

One of my favourite remedies was one for difficult birth, that involved a virgin holding a bag of coriander seeds outside the vagina to pull the baby out - which struck me as almost exactly the same principle as this Irn ( Read more... )

I don't even watch Heroes, so how this got into my head I don't know.


( Read more... )

Review: Great and Desperate Cures!: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery and Other Radical Treatments for Mental Illness

Psychosurgery? What's that? Well perhaps the word 'lobotomy' might be more familiar. A treatment that we now find unutterably barbaric, this book makes it understandable why it was embraced so wholeheartedly by the medical ( Read more... )

On the 18th century medical profession's attempts to get the body of Charles Byrne, the 'Irish Giant': Already when Charles Byrne was ill, many London surgeons, who had seen and admired him when he as on exhibition, competed to get hold of his corpse for dissection. A newspaper article stated that 'the whole tribe of surgeons put in a claim for the ( Read more... )

Heheh. Really, if you're an altie therapist, opening up yourself to questions from an educated audience is just asking for trouble. Neal's Yard have currently been obvious by their absence...

My favourites so far

"Your website states:

"The correct homoeopathic remedy will stimulate a sick person's vitality to send healing energy where it is ( Read more... )

Most US spelling is more straightforward than British spelling, right? So why on earth do they abbreviate Electrocardiogram to EKG, rather than ECG as we do?

It's like they're trying to give it an interesting rock-band type name. We are ElectroKardiogram! Dude, that needs some heavy metal umlauts. ËlëctröKärdïögräm are rocking the stadium!

Really high resolution zoomable pictures of Ötzi the iceman. They are lovely, amazing stuff; you can get so close in that you can almost feel the texture of his skin. And with photos of his tattoos under UV light to see them better ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Stupid deer. Scratched my leg this morning and noticed a tick embedded into the back of my right knee. I must have picked it up going to pick some lettuce for my sarnies yesterday morning, and of course the deer hang round the vegetable patch as well ( Read more... )