Medical Curiosities : A Miscellany of Medical Oddities, Horrors and Humors

R. M. Youngson

1 A Disappointment
I thought this book would be just my cup of tea, as I am an aficionado of medical curiosities, but this is the dullest book, of this type, that I have ever read. I regret buying this book

2 Hmm... Rather strange...
Well, Mr. Youngston obviously spent a lengthy amount of time researching this book. It's evident from page one, when he sheds light on a little known and often misunderstood topic; that being the medical history. In this book he clearly shows that much of what we think in terms of medical advancement is lacking.

From the onset, and all the way through, this is an exercise in material that will make your jaw drop in surprise. The strange things the human race has done in the name of science is quite astounding in this context- or in any context for that matter.

If you thought modern doctors were full of it, just wait until you see this! I'm actually considering calling my doctor and thanking him for not being like this- though I suppose that statement is overdoing it a bit, but I remind you- it's just a LITTLE bit.

Entertaining, sometimes shocking, occasionally funny- this is quite a book!

Perhaps the biggest disappointments were the ones you expected anyway.

An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows
he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great
restraint.
As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment
after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next
time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect,
with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems,
is ready to build a second system.
This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs.
When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will
confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems,
and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that
are particular and not generalizable.
The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using
all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first
one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile."
-- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"