Caroline Rance's Blog, page 2
October 15, 2016
A breath of maggoty air
No one likes to be the hapless person who wanders into the garage and finds a forgotten turkey carcase humming with maggots and surrounded in a fug of pungent effluvia. I suppose it would be a great story if this had been a defining moment of my teenage years, inspiring …
September 17, 2016
Beyond the asylum: a review of the Wellcome Collection’s Bedlam
A review of the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition, Bedlam: The Asylum and Beyond, which runs from 15 September 2016 – 15 January 2017. I’ve never spokenhereabout having depression and anxiety because, after all, no one wants to hearabout yet another obscure writer pretending to be some tormented genius. But it’s why …
April 18, 2016
Forthcoming events
Join me for some quack-filled talks in London this summer! I’ve been invited by the London Fortean Society and Antique Beat to share my stories of fraud, advertising and the occasional gruesome death. I’ll cover different material each time so do come along to both – it would be great …
January 19, 2016
To raise false hopes
I appeared on Great British Railway Journeys, series 7, episode 11, on 18 Jan 2016. The episode is available on BBC iPlayer, and here’s some more information about one of the remedies featured: ‘Tears and prayers are of no use,’ warned the eyecatching pictorial advertisement in the Penny Illustrated …
January 13, 2016
The Amateur Anatomist and the Amputated Finger
Injuries acquired in unusual circumstances, spurious news storiesof medical happenings, bizarre or gruesome reports from doctors’ casebooks… Strange casesis an occasional feature on the Quack Doctorthat reproduces these tales. In this excerpt from the London Courier and Evening Gazette of 4 December 1824, we meet ayoung poulterer whose ‘itching for …
December 15, 2015
New book: The History of Medicine in 100 Facts
The history of medicine is a vast subject, encompassing the whole of humanity in every region of the globe. For millennia, our ancestors have sought to combat disease, relieve pain and postpone the Grim Reaper’s inevitable victory, doing so with a fortitude and humour that makes their experiences resonate with …
May 11, 2015
The mysterious Doctor Du Brange
While researching in the British Newspaper Archive, Kilburn historians Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms discovered a practitioner with the unusual name of Du Brange. They were intrigued to find that he appeared in court several times. I’m intrigued too, as Du Brange has a lot of similarities with other London …
April 16, 2015
Vodcast: The Great Pox in Early Modern Europe
Fellow history blogger The Groovy Historian invited me to do a vodcast about syphilis. Here’s the result! You can sign up to The Groovy Historian’s Youtube channel for regular history videos, and follow him on Twitter at @GroovyHistorian
April 1, 2015
Dr Wheeler and the Bacillus of Death
In May 1895, a low-key but intriguing advertisement appeared in British local newspapers. What could this ‘death microbe’ be? Did it refer to the lethal pathogens such as anthrax and tuberculosis that had been identified within the past two decades? Announcements of newly isolated bacilli regularly reached the general population …
March 16, 2015
The bogus lady doctor
In a recent post for the British Newspaper Archive, I mentioned Maria Owen, who posed as a doctor in late Victorian Birmingham. Here’s some more information about her, adapted from my book, The Quack Doctor: ‘I can cure you,’ the representative of the Ladies’ Medical Association told 37-year-old Julia Ann …
