Quote of the Day: "I cannot see any good reason to think of the way, say, oral sex, triggers or fails to trigger disgust any differently than how we think of the cornbread."

Terrible Period Advice

See the article HERE

Who knew gallstones could be so beautiful?

Image from from Thomas Schnalke's "Das Ding an Sich: Zur Geschichte eines berliner Gallensteins."

The Chymist

"Originally, alchemy was a secretive activity, with its own complex and mystical imagery. By the 1740s it had become distinct from chemistry, and alchemists were popularly regarded as charlatans."

X-Ray Singing

Tuberculosis: HOT or NOT?

https://deadmaidens.com/2017/03/16/tubercular-venus-when-the-beauty-standard-was-dying/

Womb Questions

Why do these votive wombs look like...not wombs?

By the inimitable Helen King

and more here

New Blog

Always more to see and read:

https://medhumdailydose.com/2012/05/

By Brandy Schillace

On the French Midwife Madame du Coudray

"She was a bold pioneer in obstetrical pedagogy in the service of France, tirelessly promoting the interests of the government that dispatched her. She was a curse visited upon the traditional village matrons who practiced timehonored ways of birthing and wanted no "help" or instruction disrupting their lives. She was a female upstart usurping the turf of doctors and surgeons who had traditionally presided over all examinations and degreegranting ceremonies for midwives throughout the country. She was a wondrous, brilliant phenomenon. She was a virago. A loyal patriotic servant. A fraud not to be trusted. An ingenious inventor. An outrageous, pretentious quack. A selfsacrificing, devoted teacher. Feminist role model. Traitor to her sex. Savior of the French population. Mere flash in the pan. Boon to humanity. Royal (literally) nuisance. Any and all of the above, depending on your point of view."

Gelbart, Nina Rattner. The King's Midwife : A History and Mystery of Madame Du Coudray. University of California Press, 1998.

On the anatomical modeller Marie Catherine (or Marguerite) Bihéron