Medicine’s Dark Secrets: What Makes YOU Tick?
Just under two weeks till we kick off the fundraising campaign for ‘Medicine’s Dark Secrets!’ I can’t tell you how excited I am about this project!
When I began The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice a little over 2 years ago, I had no idea how many people would be interested in this subject. I’m constantly surprised and delighted by your emails and queries. Your passion for the macabre and wonderful world of medical history fuels my own.
Therefore, it only seems fitting that you tell me what you want to see on ‘Medicine’s Dark Secrets.’ After all, this is as much your project as it is mine. I could never have gotten this far without your support and encouragement, and I want to make this documentary with your views in mind.
Over the next few months, I’ll be running polls to find out what makes your intellectual curiosity tick.
Perhaps you’d like to learn more about anthropodermic bibliopegy? Or why anatomical collections came into existence in the first place? What about the executioner’s role in medical history? Or how body-snatchers dealt with the physical and emotional realties of their grim tasks?
Whatever it is, I want to know!
In the meantime, please have a look at the trailer – and continue to spread the word about ‘Medicine’s Dark Secrets’ in the lead up to the campaign!
I really appreciate your support and enthusiasm!
Well, I’d like to read about autopsy techniques from any time period prior to 19th century. Also any artwork of autopsy theatre’s from the same 19th century and earlier would be a bonus. Do what ya love, love what ya do!
I’m interested in the appearance of syphilis and the ongoing debate about the disease- did it come from North America or was it in Europe before 1494 (I believe there are some European monks’ skeletons from much earlier which show signs of it; how the disease changed- did people develop some immunity or did the pathogen change; how we can diagnose it on skeletons etc. It had a huge effect on society.
I am more of a surgical bent. Some topics that I think are the dark side of medicine are: vivisection of live animals, the use of now-known toxins (mercury being the most obvious, but what others were used?), mummia (you’ve written about that before, and I imagine there are some great related artifacts to show), and the patient’s perspective when it came to surgery without anesthesia (for some it was horrific, for soliders, at least according to George Guthrie, some bore it well).
All things Victorian Macabre fascinate me, so anything from strange medical practices of the time, post mortem photography and their obsession with the dead, to the unusual items one might find in their cabinet of curiosities!
What led me to your blog in the first place was a post on ressurectionists. I found all of the information you have here fascinating, so besides more on my original search, anything you want to cover would suit me
(nightsmusic)