Morbid Fact Du Jour for January 11, 2015

Today’s Undetected Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

One of the notable names in the roll of medical infamy is Dr. Edmé Castaing of Paris. At the age of 27, Dr. Castaing enjoyed the good life, and did not look froward to the lifetime of drudgery of a general practitioner. One of his patients was a wealthy man named Hippolyte Ballet, who had tuberculosis. Castaing became friendly with Hippolyte’s younger brother Auguste, and learned that the brothers were on bad terms – so bad that Hippolyte had excluded his brother from his will. One evening, as they drank together, Auguste hinted that Castaing might hasten his brother’s death, and gain possession of the will.

So, on October 22, 1822, Hippolyte quite suddenly died, to the astonishment of other doctors who had occasionally attended him. A month later, Castaing paid off all his debts, and lent his mother 300,000 francs. The following year, on June 2, Castaing and Auguste Ballet went for a drive in the country, and stopped at a hotel in St. Cloud, where they ate and drank. Then Auguste was suddenly taken ill, and soon died, attended by his friend Castaing and two other doctors. The other G.P.s recognized the signs of morphine poisoning, and they discovered that, even after Ballet had started to vomit, Castaing had gone to a local chemist and bought more morphine. When it was discovered that Ballet had made a will in Castaing’s favor, the doctor was arrested.

Castaing was relying on the fact that morphine was very difficult to detect. And he was proved to be right Although the doctors agreed that Auguste Ballet had shown all the signs of morphine poisoning – vomiting, diarrhea, heavy breathing, contraction of the pupils – no trace of morphine could be detected in his stomach. The prosecutor asked indignantly if all murderers who used morphine should be allowed to go free, just because medical science was unable to detect its presence. That swung the jury. Castaing was sentenced to death, and executed in December 1823, protesting his innocence.

Culled from: Crimes and Punishment, the Illustrated Crime Encyclopedia, Volume 8

Ghastly! – Tweezer Edition

Studious students posing with the star of their show.

Culled from:  Dissection: Photographs of a Rite of Passage in American Medicine 1880-1930.

Morbid Trinket Du Jour!

This is an old article so the trinket is long since sold, but it’s too cool not to share.  I love morbid old automatons – and this is one of the best I’ve seen!   There’s a video of the automaton in action at the link.  (Thanks to Paula for sending this one my way.)

Automata Blog