The Ansel Bourne Identity
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 27, 2026
In January 1887, a mild-mannered itinerant preacher named Ansel Bourne left his home in Greene, Rhode Island, to travel to nearby Providence...
Showing posts with the label Medicine
Caroline Hampton's Rubber Gloves
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 22, 2026
In the late nineteenth century, modern surgery was still emerging from an era in which hygiene was, by today’s standards, startlingly poor. ...
Jean-Baptiste Denys and the First Blood Transfusion
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 25, 2025
In 1667, in a small Parisian chamber lit by oil lamps and crowded with curious observers, a young physician named Jean-Baptiste Denys carrie...
The First Caesarean Section on a Living Woman
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 27, 2025
In the early years of the sixteenth century, in the small Swiss village of Siegershausen, a man named Jacob Nufer faced a situation of unima...
John Taylor: The Oculist Who Blinded Bach
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 9, 2025
Legendary German composer and musician Johann Sebastian Bach suffered from weak eyesight for much of his life. His handwriting—beautiful in ...
Hua Tuo And The Mysterious Mafeisan
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 30, 2025
During the late Eastern Han dynasty, a brilliant Chinese physician named Hua Tuo —renowned for his pioneering medical techniques, surgical s...
The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 16, 2025
In the late 19th century, a rare and highly unusual neuropsychiatric condition was observed among a group of French-Canadian lumberjacks li...
James Lind And The First Clinical Trial
Kaushik Patowary
May 12, 2025
In the mid-18th century, the British Royal Navy was the most powerful maritime force in the world, but its dominance came at a high cost. Am...
Harold Gillies: The Father of Plastic Surgery
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 9, 2025
This is Walter Yeo, an English sailor who was injured while manning the guns aboard the battleship HMS Warspite during the Battle of Jutla...
James Tilly Matthews And The Air Loom
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 21, 2025
James Tilly Matthews was delusional. He believed that secret gangs of people were operating across London, using a bizarre machine called th...
Santorio Santori And Insensible Perspiration
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 18, 2024
Some people become obsessed with tracking their weight, carefully counting every calorie they eat and burn through exercise. They even weigh...
Ernest Duchesne: The Forgotten Discoverer of Penicillin
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 19, 2024
In 1897, a young French medical student named Ernest Duchesne submitted a ground-breaking doctoral thesis titled Contribution to the Study o...
Antimony Pill: The Everlasting Pill
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 29, 2024
Antimony—the soft, lustrous gray metal—has many industrial uses such as in the preparation of flame-retarding compounds and in the manufactu...
Optography: Preserving a Dead Person’s Last Sight
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 15, 2023
In 1924, Germany was rocked by a sensational case of multiple homicide. Fritz Heinrich Angerstein, a resident of Limberg, Germany, had bruta...
The Tragedy of Ignaz Semmelweis: The Doctor Who Pioneered Hand-Washing
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 10, 2023
Nearly 150 years have passed since the groundbreaking contributions of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch helped lay the foundation of the germ t...
Martin van Butchell: The Dentist Who Put His Dead Wife on Display
Kaushik Patowary
May 25, 2023
Quackery in dentistry has existed as far back as the earliest days when sufferers from dental problems sought treatment at the hands of some...
Girolamo Segato’s Mysterious Petrified Mummies
Kaushik Patowary
May 9, 2023
For thousands of years, different cultures across continents have successfully preserved bodies of their ancestors. For the Egyptians, mummi...
The Case of The Exploding Teeth
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 21, 2023
In the January 1861 issue of The Dental Cosmos , the first major journal of American dentistry, a Pennsylvania dentist named WH Atkinson doc...
Serge Voronoff: The Doctor Who Transplanted Monkey Testicles Into Men to Rejuvenate Them
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 7, 2023
One of the most sensational presentations at the 1923 International Congress of Surgeons in London was made by the Russia-born French surgeo...
Painless Parker: The Showman Dentist
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 27, 2022
At the Temple University's dental museum in Philadelphia, there is a small section dedicated to one of the most notorious dentist of Ame...
