The Lion Boy and Other Medical Curiosities

by Jan Bondeson

In this book of amazing oddities, the successor to his popular Cabinet of Medical Curiositiesand The Two-Headed Boy, Jan Bondeson explores various surprising and bizarre aspects of the history of medicine: Does people’s hair go white after a sudden fright; can the image of the killer be seen in the eyes of a murdered person; does the severed head of a guillotined person maintain some degree of consciousness? Giants, dwarfs and medical freaks are paraded in front of the reader, to say nothing of Johnny Trunley, the Fat Boy of Peckham, who was a sensation in Edwardian show business, and his various rotund rivals. In this book, Bondeson combines a historian’s research skills with a physician’s diagnostic flair, as he explores our timeless fascination with the freakish and bizarre people and events in the colourful history of medicine.

288 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2018

About the author

Outside of his career in medicine, he has written several nonfiction books on a variety of topics, such as medical anomalies and unsolved murder mysteries.

Bondeson is the biographer of a predecessor of Jack the Ripper, the London Monster, who stabbed fifty women in the buttocks, of Edward 'the Boy' Jones, who stalked Queen Victoria and stole her underwear, and Greyfriars Bobby, a Scottish terrier who supposedly spent 14 years guarding his master's grave.

He is currently working as a senior lecturer and consultant rheumatologist at the Cardiff University School of Medicine.


(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Alex]

A collection of historical medical oddities discussed in a slightly archaic academic style which lets the language and tone of the original sources fit without too much adaptation. The facts are unembellished and speculation about the underlying science is rigorously grounded and unflinchingly technical which I appreciated.

Although this is an inherently loaded topic and it isn’t a social study, the author feels a clear empathy for those whose biological exceptionalism led them to fall prey to show business, and there’s a clear respect for those that were able to secure their respect and autonomy.

The last chapter is oddly about hyperpedestrianism - an odd fit but I recall reading and enjoying a short article on the same topic in the Fortean Times, likely by the same author.