8 - 2019 | The Old Operating Theatre

‘Pain has an element of blank’

We assume that our ancestors felt pain in much the same way as we do today. But perhaps this ‘common-sense’ assumption is incorrect. The way individuals relate to the world, including their own bodies, is interpreted through culture, there is

Introduction to English Witches in the Early Modern Period

Between 1450 and 1750 ecclesiastical and secular courts tried and executed tens of thousand of people throughout Europe for the crime of witchcraft. Witchcraft may be defined as supernatural activity, believed to be the result of power given by the

An Englishman’s Paradise

In 1862, while the new buildings of St Thomas’ were under construction near Westminster Bridge, the hospital temporarily moved to Surrey Gardens. Now a populous area between the Kennington and Walworth Roads, the Gardens were once, according to Punch Magazine,

There Together Be Suspended

On November 13th 1849, the felonious couple Frederick and Maria Manning were publicly executed at the Horsemonger Lane Gaol, Southwark, for the murder of Patrick O’Connor – an affair that became known as the “Bermondsey Horror.” She, a Swiss born

Victorian Attitudes Towards Self-Murder

On New Year’s Eve 1811 the body of John Williams, who had hanged himself in prison while awaiting trial for the Ratcliff Highway murders, was paraded through the streets of Wapping on an elevated platform before an estimated crowd of

The Natural Ordure of Things

“Why, what I may think after dinner is one thing, and what I may think before dinner is another.” Mr Jopling, ‘Bleak House’. It’s a fair assumption that not many of us contemplate the complex journey taken, from mouth to anus,

The Invention of Rubber Gloves: A True Love Story!

In 2006 Professor Harold Ellis, CBE Mch FRCS, during an interview at the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret shared this little love story connected to the invention of the rubber gloves. What comes next is a transcription of

Review: Quacks and Anaesthesia

Set in a time of change for medicine, Quacks also embraces the introduction of pain relief. Quacks is treating anaesthesia for effect, but there are also kernels of historic truth in this comedy. Firstly, their ether and chloroform is applied

Polyps: A Real Life Hydra in Miniature

Previously, I wrote a blog about the reintroduction of Rhinoplasty to European surgery in the early 19th century by Joseph Constantine Carpue. The idea of transplanting tissue had been neglected for such a long time in Europe, and I wanted to try

Precious Objects as Materia Medica

Coral & Pearl In the Secrets of Maister Alexis, translated into English by William Warde in 1558 we find on folio 69 (recto) a recipe for a distilled water which “is very good to make white and to beautifie the flesh, and

The Fear of Female Physicians (Cunning-Women) in Anglo-Saxon England

‘Woman is the gate of the devil, the path of wickedness, the sting of the serpent, in a word, a perilous object.’ Saint Jerome, 4th century. In the small Cotswold village of Bidford-on-Avon you will find ‘the grave of someone with

Seeing is Believing: Spiritualism in the Victorian Era-Part 4

The Society of Psychical Research was one of a number of organisations established in Britain in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was founded in 1882 by a group of Cambridge philosophers and scientists after a meeting of

Seeing is Believing: Spiritualism in the Victorian Era-Part 3

In the dawn of modern spiritualism the general means of communication employed by the spirits were made by “raps” or “alphabet rapping”, where a medium could relay messages from the deceased by writing letters on a slate. Under more favourable

Seeing is Believing: Spiritualism in the Victorian Era-Part 2

In mid-Victorian London the early spiritualist movement was relatively small and mainly dominated by the upper circles of society. A varied grouping of middle-class intellectuals and professionals became the early advocates of spiritualism, which included physicians, professors, lawyers and writers

Seeing is Believing: Spiritualism in the Victorian Era-Part 1

“There exists… a Higher science, which is also religion in the truest sense, which deals with hidden forces in nature at which Physical science stops short, but which are more than suspected by the majority of mankind, because every form

Dried Marigold Flowers

Many flowers have names associated with the Virgin Mary – Lady’s Mantle and Lady’s Smock to name two. It would seem reasonable to assume that Marigold, old name Marygold, is one of these. The plant certainly came to be associated

The Christmas Rose as a Medicinal Plant

Today we know Black Hellebore (botanical name Helliborus Officinalis) as the Christmas Rose, but it also had a much older name, Christe Herb. The reason for both of these alternative names is that, in a mild winter, this plant will flower at

Gum Arabic: History and Uses

Gum Arabic is a gummy exudation from the branches of the Acacia Senegal (L.) Willd and other species of the Leguminosae Family. It is also known as Gum Acacia, Kordofan Gum, Gum Senegal, Acacia Vera, Gummi Africanum, Gummae Mimosae, kher, Sudan Gum Arabic,

Unicorns and Disingenuous Apothecaries

On the 30th of January I attended the opening of the current exhibition at the Royal College of Physicians, ‘A Cabinet of Rarities’: the Curious Collections of Sir Thomas Browne. This included an ‘in-conversation’ between Prof. Claire Preston, editor of

The Black Poppy

A TALL AND FINE PLANT BUT NOT SO ELEGANT AS THE FORMER [THE WHITE POPPY]. IT IS A YARD HIGH. THE STALK IS ROUND, UPRIGHT AND FIRM, AND SMOOTH, AND TOWARD THE TOP DIVIDES INTO SOME BRANCHES. THE LEAVES ARE

William Lowder: A Male Midwife in 18th-Century England

Midwifery was a developing science in the 18th century. New discoveries were being made in anatomy and physiology; new instruments were developed, and midwifery schools began to open, with courses running in the hospitals and partnerships created with lying in

Month: August 2019