Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine | Page 4

iteration of titles, in which the conspicuous words are curiosa, rara,
monstruosa, memorabilia, prodigiosa, selecta, exotica, miraculi, lusibus
naturae, occultis naturae, etc., etc. Even when medical science became
more strict, it was largely the curious and rare that were thought worthy
of chronicling, and not the establishment or illustration of the common,
or of general principles. With all his sovereign sound sense, Ambrose
Pare has loaded his book with references to impossibly strange, and
even mythologic cases.
In our day the taste seems to be insatiable, and hardly any medical
journal is without its rare or "unique" case, or one noteworthy chiefly
by reason of its anomalous features. A curious case is invariably
reported, and the insertion of such a report is generally productive of
correspondence and discussion with the object of finding a parallel for
it.
In view of all this it seems itself a curious fact that there has never been
any systematic gathering of medical curiosities. It would have been
most natural that numerous encyclopedias should spring into existence
in response to such a persistently dominant interest. The forelying

volume appears to be the first thorough attempt to classify and
epitomize the literature of this nature. It has been our purpose to briefly
summarize and to arrange in order the records of the most curious,
bizarre, and abnormal cases that are found in medical literature of all
ages and all languages--a thaumatographia medica. It will be readily
seen that such a collection must have a function far beyond the
satisfaction of mere curiosity, even if that be stigmatized with the word
"idle." If, as we believe, reference may here be found to all such cases
in the literature of Medicine (including Anatomy, Physiology, Surgery,
Obstetrics, etc.) as show the most extreme and exceptional departures
from the ordinary, it follows that the future clinician and investigator
must have use for a handbook that decides whether his own strange
case has already been paralleled or excelled. He will thus be aided in
determining the truth of his statements and the accuracy of his
diagnoses. Moreover, to know extremes gives directly some knowledge
of means, and by implication and inference it frequently does more.
Remarkable injuries illustrate to what extent tissues and organs may be
damaged without resultant death, and thus the surgeon is encouraged to
proceed to his operation with greater confidence and more definite
knowledge as to the issue. If a mad cow may blindly play the part of a
successful obstetrician with her horns, certainly a skilled surgeon may
hazard entering the womb with his knife. If large portions of an
organ,--the lung, a kidney, parts of the liver, or the brain itself,--may be
lost by accident, and the patient still live, the physician is taught the
lesson of nil desperandum, and that if possible to arrest disease of these
organs before their total destruction, the prognosis and treatment
thereby acquire new and more hopeful phases.
Directly or indirectly many similar examples have also clear
medicolegal bearings or suggestions; in fact, it must be acknowledged
that much of the importance of medical jurisprudence lies in a thorough
comprehension of the anomalous and rare cases in Medicine. Expert
medical testimony has its chief value in showing the possibilities of the
occurrence of alleged extreme cases, and extraordinary deviations from
the natural. Every expert witness should be able to maintain his
argument by a full citation of parallels to any remarkable theory or
hypothesis advanced by his clients; and it is only by an exhaustive
knowledge of extremes and anomalies that an authority on medical

jurisprudence can hope to substantiate his testimony beyond question.
In every poisoning case he is closely questioned as to the largest dose
of the drug in question that has been taken with impunity, and the
smallest dose that has killed, and he is expected to have the cases of
reported idiosyncrasies and tolerance at his immediate command. A
widow with a child of ten months' gestation may be saved the loss of
reputation by mention of the authentic cases in which pregnancy has
exceeded nine months' duration; the proof of the viability of a seven
months' child may alter the disposition of an estate; the proof of death
by a blow on the epigastrium without external marks of violence may
convict a murderer; and so it is with many other cases of a medicolegal
nature.
It is noteworthy that in old-time medical literature--sadly and unjustly
neglected in our rage for the new--should so often be found parallels of
our most wonderful and peculiar modern cases. We wish, also, to enter
a mild protest against the modern egotism that would set aside with a
sneer as myth and fancy the testimonies and reports of philosophers
and physicians, only because they lived hundreds of years ago. We are