Late 18th-century Georgian Britain had such fascinating trends. An age of Enlightenment, it brought forth people who were in love with science and anything that sounded “science-y”, even when the actual science was missing. And, no surprise, interest peaked when said pseudo-science trend dealt with sex. This brings me to one James Graham (1745-1794), a […]
Sexologist James Graham’s Celestial Bed Read More »
This photo shows a Carthusian monk mixing ingredients for the liqueur known as “Chartreuse,” a beverage so famous that it gave its name to a color. The monks have been producing this drink for centuries. The Carthusian order has been consistently strict since their founding in the late eleventh century. The monks have prayed and
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Do clearer drawings of this image appear on the interwebs? They might, but I deliberately selected this one because the scene it depicts is maybe not one that a casual scroller would want to see — it’s widely considered one of the first extant depictions of a male circumcision surgery. The practice of male circumcision
Ancient Egyptian Men Were among the Earliest to Practice Circumcision Read More »
I cannot imagine how knowledge of this Early Modern European hairstyle has evaded me for so long. It’s absolutely disgusting and I cannot look away, but I suggest really thinking twice before you flip to the second image. I am talking about “Plica Polonica” or the “Polish Plait”. It went by a bunch of different
According to rentechdigital.com, there are 3,615 Pilates studios in the US as of July 14, 2023. And even if your town doesn’t have one, your local gym might offer Pilates classes — it’s an exercise style with a lot of staying power, and it was started by this guy here: Joseph Hubertus Pilates (1883-1967). Pilates’
Hubertus Pilates and the Exercises He Developed While Imprisoned in a War Camp Read More »
“We in the West are the first generation in human history in which the mass of the population has to deliberately exercise to be healthy.” — so wrote Jeremiah “Jerry” Morris towards the end of his 99-year life of remarkable scholarship about the effects of disease and physical movement. Or really, the lack of physical
Jerry Morris and the Discovery That Exercise Is Good for You Read More »
Here you are looking at the compound microscope developed by Robert Hooke (d 1703), a Renaissance scientist more famous for dabbling in academic fields as disparate as physics and palaeontology than a particular discovery. Nevertheless, his microscope allowed him to illustrate things he included in _Micrographia_, which utterly captivated his British audience. Samuel Pepys the
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“Snake Oil” earned the connotation of being a huckster’s fake medical treatment in the early 20th century thanks largely to the efforts of one Clarke Stanley, whose infamous product is featured here. However, the actual origins of snake oil as a medicinal product have a different and more legitimate background in Chinese traditional medicine. Clarke
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