{"id":5995,"date":"2015-08-19T21:40:06","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T02:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=5995"},"modified":"2023-12-15T21:18:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T03:18:52","slug":"morbid-fact-du-jour-for-august-17-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=5995","title":{"rendered":"Morbid Fact Du Jour for August 17, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Remarkable Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/h3>\n

Dr. David Livingstone (yes, of “I presume?” fame), being a qualified surgeon, naturally took a special interest in African medicine and he left descriptions of many remarkable native practices. On one of his journeys he saw a woman who had an arrow-head embedded in her back just below the ribs, penetrating the left lung. Although several inches of the barbed arrow were embedded in the flesh near the diaphragm, and air was coming out of the wound, the native surgeon did not hesitate to cut out the arrow with a portion of the lung. The woman recovered.<\/p>\n

On another occasion Livingstone witnessed an extraordinary method of treating a gunshot wound with fracture of the bones of the leg. A hole two feet deep and four feet long was dug in the ground and the wounded man was sat in it with his legs outstretched. The legs were covered by leaves, earth and mud, over which a fire of sticks and grass was built. The fire was allowed to burn until the heat had penetrated to the buried limb and could no longer be borne. The patient was then taken out of the hole, and the injured leg was stretched, splinted, and tightly bound.<\/p>\n

In skull fractures African natives remove any piece of loose bone and bind certain leaves over the part. Bullets are occasionally removed, a stiff hair from an elephant’s tail being used as a probe and the missile being worked out through the original opening by massage and pinching. A man gored in the abdomen by an elephant replaced the bowels, which had been partially torn out, inserted a small calabash (gourd) to keep them in place, then drew the skin over all and sewed it across. The shape of the calabash could be clearly seen, but the man recovered and was able to undertake the hardest labor.<\/p>\n

Culled from:\u00a0The Early History of Surgery<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Livingstone, himself:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brain Du Jour!<\/h3>\n

Here\u2019s another excerpt from\u00a0Malformed: Forgotten Brains of the Texas State Mental Hospital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

*3693-13-1980:
\nStudy No. 206<\/p>\n

This label breaks from the collection’s convention with only a case number alluding to the date. This brain’s hemispheres are severely asymmetrical.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pinterest Du Jour!<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI thought I’d start sharing interesting Pinterest images when I stumble across them and this one caught my eye. \u00a0“A photograph from 1878 of a medical device used to treat spinal conditions.” \u00a0Ruthlessly swiped from Sara Garcia’s\u00a0Pinterest<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Remarkable Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Dr. David Livingstone (yes, of “I presume?” fame), being a qualified surgeon, naturally took a special interest in African medicine and he left descriptions of many remarkable native practices. On one of his journeys he saw a woman who had an arrow-head embedded in her back just below the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts","category-ghastly","category-sundry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5995"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11764,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5995\/revisions\/11764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}