Didactic Tights

Reproduction Wheaton Medicine Bottles

Straubmuller Elixir: Tree of Life

and

Indian Vegetable Jaundice Bitters

Chief Wahoo's Electric Tonic

Body as Vessel

Get Reborn

Newborn kitten?

From a translation of Jacopo Berengario da Carpi's Isagogue Breves

Perhaps an early form of butt chugging?

Sometimes it's probably not that great to be king...

From A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya by Linda Schele and David Freidel

Quotes from "Midwifery, Obstetrics, and the Rise of Gynaecology"

"Waldung picked up on Dubois's comment that 'Woman abounds with a great quantity of blood'."

"They believed that, if menstruation did not occur, then t he surplus blood would come out through another orifice, or continue to build up in the body, putting pressure on different organs, until disease or even death resulted."

"Mercado...[helped] a virgin who, through no fault of her own, has a wide vaginal opening."

"Common to many [treatises on women] was the idea that women are wetter than men, and that this is turn results from the flesh throughout their bodies being of a softer and more spongy texture, absorbing more fluid from their diet. Glands 16 explains that women's bodies retain moisture because they are loose-textured, spongy, and like wool."

Funny Picture of Dude Holding Ancient Roman Brothel Tokens

LA Times reporter Jason Felch, who broke the story of the Getty's ownership of looted anqituities.

Midnight Snack

Are you up late at night thinking about your impending death?

Well now you have something to read, too.

Fetal Acrobatics

Charles Darwin's walking stick

Made of whalebone, ivory, and green glass. Classy, no?

"I do think that this filling of the vagina with traps, making a Chinese toyshop of it, is outrageous."

W. D. Buck, c. early 19th century

Menstrual blood can:

"turn wine sour, crops touched by it become barren, grafts die, seeds in gardens are dried up, the fruit of trees falls off, the bright surface of mirrors in which it is merely reflected is dimmed, the edge of steel and the gleam of ivory are dulled, hives and bees die, even bronze and iron are at once seized by rust, and a horrible smell fills the air; to taste it drives dogs mad and infects their bites with an incurable poison.” 

Pliny, Natural History, 7.15.46-65; trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass.: 1942), 2:549.

"Menstrual blood, in addition to the fact that it cures some quartan fevers, hydrophobia, epilepsy, elephantiasis, depression, madness, and many other similar pernicious illnesses, is not less worthy of being admired for numerous other effects; among other marvels, for example, it extinguishes fires, calms tempests, keeps away the danger of raging waters, expels every nuisance, unbinds spells, and puts evil spirits to flight." 

- Cornelius Agrippa (from the Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex). 

Bellmer also did some absolutely amazing erotic drawings that can be found in a few books on his general oeuvre.

More fistulas than you can shake a fist at

A great listen: Radiolab's episode called GUTS.

The best story is a historical one about a doctor that essentially kept experimenting on a guy who had a hole in his stomach. But it sounds way more interesting when they tell it.