Featured articles

Scour Dr. Pembroke’s journals and essays for more true tales of the brutal, depraved and twisted examples of medical history…

18Aug 20203 Dec 2025

Eyes and Needles – Part 2

(If you’d like to catch up, ‘Medicine Macabre – Eyes and Needles – Part 1’ can be found here) Alas. If the readership…

Eyes and Needles – Part 1

Let me pose a question: how much do you value the sight of your loved ones? How much stock do you place…

The General’s Leg

The American Civil War, like any conflict, produced a cast of both famous and infamous characters and personalities throughout its brutal…

Testimonials

“Never before have I witnessed a more ghastly aberration of medical science than what I experienced here today… with such flagrant disregard for protocol, safety or even basic standards of cleanliness… it is unknown if upon his slab a single life has been saved within this travesty he calls a practice… This doctor, if he can even be provided this title, is a brutal figure of barbarism and grotesque morbidity, the likes of which I have never seen in all my years of surgical enterprise…. He should be run from the establishment with all haste and prosecuted to the full extent of the law…”

-Sir Astley Cooper, 1832

“Do not book for children’s parties…”

-Anon

“Anyone who wishes to trephine, should they themselves be trephined in turn… why therefore Dr. Pembroke felt it important to drill three times in a row on a perfectly healthy patient is simply beyond me…”

Medical History

Eyes and Needles – Part 2

18 Aug 20203 Dec 2025

(If you'd like to catch up, 'Medicine Macabre - Eyes and Needles - Part 1' can be found here) Alas. If the readership of my previous article on eyes is anything to go…

Medical History

Eyes and Needles – Part 1

Let me pose a question: how much do you value the sight of your loved ones? How much stock do you place by seeing your children, your parents, perhaps a lover? How much would…

Medical History

The General’s Leg

The American Civil War, like any conflict, produced a cast of both famous and infamous characters and personalities throughout its brutal span. Whilst some, like General Sedgwick and his famous last…

Medical History

Condoms

My esteemed audience. It is with great urgency that I must present to you a deeply concerning and frankly alarming statistic: following extensive research, I have discovered that sexual intercourse…

Medical History

The Lady and the Pox

MERCUTIO I am hurt. A plague o' both your houses! I am sped. Is he gone and hath nothing? BENVOLIO What, art thou hurt? MERCUTIO Ay, ay, a scratch, a…

Pembroke's Remedies

Dr. Pembroke’s Remedies – Kendal Black Drops

18 Aug 202018 Aug 2020

Those of you who are regular readers of my delightful romps through the darker side of medical science might sometimes lend themselves to question - where on earth does he get the…

Medical History

A Quick Trip to the Doctor

A trip to the doctor is a common enough practice. You feel a twinge here, an ache there, and off you pop to consult the local quack, who following careful…

Medical History

Surgery Floor Scrapings Vol. 1

18 Aug 202018 Aug 2020

In my research and readings, I often come across little tidbits of medical information and history, too juicy to leave alone and yet not substantial enough to merit an entire…

Medical History

Flowers and Corpses

I love to garden. The joy of observing the steady growth of a living thing, flourishing and burgeoning in your tender custody. Quite the opposite of my other pastimes, usually involving the very…

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