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

Anatomy Night School

3 Feb 20203 Dec 2025

During the intellectually ravenous period of the mid to late 1700's, the study of medicine was flourishing and blooming like some strange, bloody, sticky anatomical flower, as doctors engaged themselves…

Medical History…

Dr. Pembroke’s Remedies – Cocaine Wine!

28 Oct 20183 Dec 2025

Editorial note: In a warm, mahogany paneled drawing room, adorned with filled bookshelves, gorgeous chandeliers and lofty ceilings, Dr. James D. Pembroke sits in an armchair, leaning slightly to one side. To…

Momento Mori Fundraiser at the International Museum of Surgical Science 26th October 2018

24 Oct 201824 Oct 2018

On 26th October 2018, Chicago’s most canny – and uncanny – physicians return to the International Museum of Surgical Science for its first ever Halloween Gala! Tickets sell out quickly so…

Medical History…

Dr. Pembroke’s Remedies – Electric Corsets!

16 Oct 20183 Dec 2025

The most enduring folly of civilization is the persistent focus on personal aesthetics; sleek, flowing hair, accentuated toned muscles, minuscule waists, youthful and blemish-free skin. Like the beauty equivalent of a…

Live Surgical Theater at the International Museum of Surgical Science May 3rd, May 10th 2018

27 Apr 201824 Oct 2018

Medical History

Dirty Jobs of the Victorian Era – Angora and Anthrax

Taken from Pembroke’s Articles of Occupational Concerns, 1881 In the last few entries, we’ve been carving a merry little path through the history of occupational hazards; diseases, ailments, gross misconduct…

Dr. James Barry – It’s Time to Leave the Gender Enigma Unsolved.

13 Apr 201813 Apr 2018

Dr. James Barry was a surgical pioneer. Born in 1797 in Ireland, he rose from renowned military surgeon to inspector general of hospitals - one of the highest army medical…

‘The Alienist,’ Sadomasochism, and the Father of Sexology

12 Apr 201812 Apr 2018

TNT’s newly-concluded drama ‘The Alienist’ – based on Caleb Carr’s novel of the same name – is a psychological thriller about the hunt for a gruesome serial murderer of boy…

Medical History

Dirty Jobs of the Victorian Era – Matchmaking

8 Apr 201812 Apr 2018

And will the match trade die? And will the match trade die? Then thirty thousand working girls Will know the reason why. Daily News (25 April 1871) The humble match, a…

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