num_pages: 264
description: In this book of amazing oddities, Jan Bondeson explores unexpected, gruesome, and bizarre aspects of the history of medicine. He regales us with stories of spontaneous human combustion; vicious tribes of tailed men; the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal; Mary Toft, who allegedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits; and Julia Pastrana, exhibited around the world as the Ape Woman. Bondeson combines an historian's skill in showing us our timeless fascination with the grotesque with a physician's diagnostic abilities, as he examines the evidence and provides likely explanations for these peculiar events.
language: English
title: A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities: A Compendium of the Odd, the Bizarre, and the Unexpected
titlecomplete: A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities: A Compendium of the Odd, the Bizarre, and the Unexpected
genres: Nature, Historical, Science Nature, Medical, History, Reference, Biology, Science, Medicine, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 451
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company