Overview
A successor to his popular book A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, this new collection of essays by Jan Bondeson illustrates various anomalies of human development, the lives of the remarkable individuals concerned, and social reactions to their extraordinary bodies. Bondeson examines historical cases of dwarfism, extreme corpulence, giantism, conjoined twins, dicephaly, and extreme hairiness; his broader theme, however, is the infinite range of human experience. The dicephalous Tocci brothers and Lazarus Colloredo (from whose belly grew his malformed conjoined twin), the Swedish giant, and the king of Poland's dwarf-Bondeson considers these individuals not as ""freaks"" but as human beings born with sometimes appalling congenital deformities. He makes full use of original French, German, Dutch, Polish, and Scandinavian sources and explores elements of ethnology, literature, and cultural history in his diagnoses. Heavily illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, oil paintings, and photographs, The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels combines a scientist's scrutiny with a humanist's wonder at the endurance of the human spirit. Contents: The Two Inseparable Brothers, and a Preface The Hairy Maid at the Harpsichord The Stone-child The Woman Who Laid an Egg The Strangest Miracle in the World Some Words about Hog-faced Gentlewomen Horned Humans The Biddenden Maids The Tocci Brothers, and Other Dicephali The King of Poland's Court Dwarf Daniel Cajanus, the Swedish Giant Daniel Lambert, the Human Colossus Cat-eating Englishmen and French Frog-swallowers
Full Product Details
Author: Jan Bondeson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.20cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9780801489587
ISBN 10: 080148958
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 08 September 2004
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
General
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
The number of two-headed boys and hairy-faced girls in Jan Bondeson's new volume of miracles and marvels of medicine is astounding! But their stories illustrate how the myth-making of medicine functioned in a past in which the main means of communication was the broadside. Today with the Internet and a rich web of urban legends, Bondeson's volume serves as a corrective. It is not how far we have come in dealing with the anomalous but how little we have changed in our telling of wondrous stories. Great stories; greater lessons! Sander L. Gilman, Henry R. Luce Distinguished Service Professor of the Liberal Arts in Human Biology, The University of Chicago
A physician plumbs medical history to expose various anomalies of human development, the lives of the remarkable individuals afflicted, and the social reactions to their extraordinary bodies. -Forecast, Bridgewater, NJ, July 2000.
Author Information
Jan Bondeson is a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist at Cardiff University, Wales. He is the author of many books, including Amazing Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities; Blood on the Snow: The Killing of Olof Palme, The Two-headed Boy, and Other Medical Marvels; The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History (all from Cornell); The London Monster; The Great Pretenders: The True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries; A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities; and Buried Alive.
