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

Dirty Jobs of the Victorian Era – Chimneys and Testicles

25 Mar 20183 Dec 2025

Taken from Pembroke’s Articles of Occupational Concerns, 1881 In the last article we examined the life of the lowly chimney sweep – the ever suffering but integral member of the Victorian…

Medical History

Dirty Jobs of the Victorian Era – Chimney Sweeps Pt. 1

18 Mar 20183 Dec 2025

Taken from Pembroke’s Articles of Occupational Concerns, 1881 The limits of human endurance are never more emphatically tested than during the labor of an honest days work. The industrial revolution…

Medical History

Dirty Jobs of the Victorian Era – Syphilis and Hats

24 Feb 20183 Dec 2025

Taken from Pembroke’s Articles of Occupational Concerns, 1881 Do you own a hat? Of course you do. Every self-respecting person does. I’ve seen many of you enter my clinic touting…

Medical History…

Dr. Pembroke’s Remedies – Intestines and Puppies

9 Feb 20183 Dec 2025

Welcome to another edition of Dr. Pembroke's Remedies. I suppose that this week's edition might leave you with what could be considered the epitome of mixed feelings, ranging from extremes of…

Medical History

Stethoscopes and Breasts

26 Jan 201824 Feb 2018

Our society is utterly fascinated by breasts. The reasons for which are beyond me, but these strange fleshy and bulbous protuberances quite possess our public conscience and hind-brains like no…

Medical History

John Hunter and the Irish Giant

19 Jan 201824 Feb 2018

It's almost midnight, late by any standards. The weary owner passes a filthy rag over the bar-top and stuffs it back in his stained apron. There's only a few punters…

Medical History

Charged Loins and Shocking Parties

14 Jan 20183 Dec 2025

With summer just around the corner, it seems fitting to explore more of the electric and eclectic ways that fine folks, just like yourselves, would like to, as they say…

Medical History

Electric-Zombie Kittens

3 Jan 20183 Dec 2025

WARNING: This article contains vivid descriptions of gruesome scientific experiments on small, cute, fluffy kittens. Although Karl Weinhold's experiments strain credibility and may not have taken place, they still evoke revulsion…

Medical History

The Electric Kiss

27 Dec 201726 Jan 2018

Onyxfeld, Late Winter 1872 In a room bathed in amber light, finely dressed house guests sit or stand, rapt with anticipation. An attractive young lady sits primly on a chair…

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