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

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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…

18Aug 2020

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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…

18Aug 2020

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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

The Resurrection Men, Pt 1 – Extraction

27 Nov 201716 Dec 2017

Onyxfeld, Early Winter As I was recently traveling to the city of Onyxfeld, the train passed by a large, snow covered cemetery. The sight of it brought to mind a…

Medical History

Trepanning Pt. 2 – Magic, Medicine and Malpractice

27 Nov 20173 Dec 2025

Last week I discussed the history of the medical procedure known as trepanning. This week I will be discussing further the historical elements of the technique as used for both…

Medical History

Trepanning Pt. 1 – History

20 Nov 201717 Dec 2017

London, 1872 On My Humble Self My name is Doctor-Chirurgeon James D. Pembroke. My work is simply this: to learn about and extend the utility and usefulness of the modern…