Jamie sent me a link to a great travel blog called Nothing To See Here that has an article about a park in London that contains a memorial to people who died trying to save other people’s lives. Even better, the plaques describe the deaths in that wonderfully poetic 19th century style that I find so irresistible! For example: “Frederick Alfred Croft, Inspector, Aged 31, saved a lunatic woman from suicide at Woolwich Arsenal Station but was himself run over by the train, Jan. 11, 1878.” Oh, such a glorious place to visit!!! A photograph of this plaque and other equally delightful examples can be found on the blog. Enjoy!
Postman’s Park, London
This site has been added to the England page of The Morbid Sightseer too. I also fixed a few broken links on the page.
Sightseer
Seems I have a new morbid sightseeing spot to go check out here in Chicagoland ASAP! The greedy ugly people at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip actually dug up bodies and dumped them in a pile in a remote corner of the cemetery so that they could resell the plots! Why, oh why, have I never explored this cemetery before now??? By the time I get there, they will probably have the pile all cleaned up or barricaded off. So sad…
Burr Oak Cemetery Nightmare
Oh, and these people should do major time for something this horrific.
News
Here’s an excellent article on that wonder of morbid evolution: the carrion flower. These flowers have evolved to replicate the stench of rotting flesh in order to attract flies and carrion beetles (which serve as unwitting pollinators). Wayne’s Word has an excellent article about the flowers, complete with photographs:
Stinking Flowers
Thanks to Megan for the suggestion.
Web
Today’s Informed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Under commission from the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Walter Reed went to Cuba in 1900 and used 22 Spanish immigrant workers to prove that yellow fever is contracted through mosquito bites. Doing so, he introduced the practice of using healthy test subjects, and also the concept of a written contract to confirm informed consent of these subjects. While doing this study, Dr. Reed clearly told the subjects that, though he will do everything he can to help them, they may die as a result of the experiment. He paid them $100 in gold for their participation, plus $100 extra if they contract yellow fever. Five people died during the study.
Culled from: Natural News
Generously submitted by: Twisted Princess
How noble the desperately poor.
Facts
The next time you’re in need of some embalming supplies, why not check out the wonderfully-named Lynch Supply Co.
Thank you to Jeremy for the link.
Trinkets
Danny was kind enough to send me a link to a wonderful 1921-era book entitled “Manual Of Surgery” by Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles. Chockfull of ghastly photos, it’s quite priceless. This particular image sent a quiver of wonderment through The Comtesse, so I thought I’d share.
Here’s the book in all its wacky morbid glory:
Manual Of Surgery
Ghastly!
Today’s Cheeky Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On December 18th, 2008, a 10 year-old 5th grader named Chao Qun Zheng went to his elementary school in HeNan, China. When his teacher, Guo, found out that young Zheng had not completed his homework, she flipped out. “She was very angry at the time,” he said. “She ripped and twisted my cheeks with both her hands and then she lifted me off the ground.” The teacher held the boy up until one of his cheeks actually ripped off and the boy was bleeding profusely. Without hesitation the teacher reached down and picked up Zheng’s cheek skin, put it on his face, and instructed the boy go home immediately.When the parents saw Zheng, they immediately took him to the hospital where it took 52 stitches to have his cheek sewn back on. Zheng’s father has reported the case to the police and is expected to press for damages.
Culled from: Weird Asia News
Generously submitted by: ear
I’m just relieved that boy cheek isn’t considered a cure-all or aphrodisiac or something, or that boy might never have gotten that cheek back!
Facts
Today’s Perpetual Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Antimony is an element that is gram-for-gram about as toxic as arsenic but on a dose-for-dose basis it is less life-threatening simply because antimony salts rapidly cause violent vomiting which expels most of the toxin from the body before it can be absorbed. This curious ability of antimony to trigger the muscles of the stomach to expel its contents generally prevented antimony’s misuse as a murder weapon. Antimony in one form or another has been used in the treatment of disease for more than 3000 years. Antimony metal appeared in two guises in the Middle Ages: emetic cups and perpetual pills, the former to cure a hangover and overindulgence, the latter to cure constipation. At the end of an evening of eating and drinking to excess, some wine was left in a special goblet made of antimony to be drunk the following day, whereupon it would soon provoke vomiting and empty the stomach. Perpetual pills were small balls of antimony which were swallowed. These would irritate the gut thereby promoting it to action to eject the irritant. The pill was then retrieved from the expelled excrement, washed, and stored for further use. There are reports that such pills were highly effective and passed from generation to generation.
Culled from: The Elements Of Murder
Ugh. I’m so glad to be living in the era of single-use suppositories.
Facts
Desmodus sends a fun little shoot-the-apple-off-the-head game. Her advice is to be heeded! “Ignore the apples. Aim for the head, eye, neck, gut, groin, leg and foot. Hilarious!”
http://www.officegamespot.com/officegames/arrow_shooter_03.swf
Mirth
Hello again! I want to thank everyone for the well-wishes I received while I was recuperating from my hysterectomy. I had the surgery on June 16th and I’m now virtually recovered – except that I’m still not allowed to lift anything, to perform vigorous exercise (as if), or to return to work (such a pity). The surgery went (in my doctor’s words) “smashingly” – but, sadly, I wasn’t able to keep the uterus because, due to my pre-cancerous condition, it had to be sliced up like a loaf of bread for detailed analysis. The pathology report came back showing various benign conditions, but no cancer. Such a waste of an organ…
I spent two days in the hospital and had a reasonably pain-free recovery (thanks to the fentanyl pump I was hooked up to), but it was hardly a peaceful environment. A man next door to me had crushed his leg in a fall from scaffolding and I quickly named him “The Moaner”. The moaner would start in softly… “oh… oh… oh… oh…” and then after a few hours would be loudly expressing his pain, “Ooooooooooh!!!!!!!!! Oooooohhhhh!!!!! Oh My God!!!!!!! Ooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!!!” I walked past him the second morning I was there and saw that his entire leg was in a cast and his foot looked like it was encased in six inches of styrofoam on all sides. I felt really bad for the guy, because it was obvious that his pain was excrutiating. (Or he was a terrible wimp. Either way, I feel bad for him.) They finally gave him a shot of morphine which quieted him down. Thank goodness… because it’s hard to heal in an environment like that!
I wanted to share one delightful brush with morbidity I had at the hospital. It happened on the second morning, after they removed the catheter and I had to attempt to go to the bathroom myself. (Which isn’t as easy as it sounds! The nurse told me that sometimes it can take up to 6 hours before you can pee after having a catheter removed.) The nurse disconnected me from the IV stand so that I could go in the bathroom unimpeded. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), she forgot to block the IV tube coming out of my arm. As I sat on the toilet, I suddenly noticed that a puddle of blood was forming at my feet. I looked over at my arm and saw that blood was streaming out of my IV onto the floor. I immediately stemmed the flow with my finger and hit the emergency assistance button. Of course, it took the nurse awhile to finally respond as I stood there in my room holding my blood in. It’s a good thing that I’m not the type to faint at the sight of my own blood or I could have been completely drained by the time the nurse arrived!
So, that was fun… but, like I said, the rest of the recovery has been uneventful. I’m glad I got the surgery over with, but I kinda feel sad now because I have no surgeries to look forward to in the near future. That is, unless my aching shoulder acts up worse than it currently is. I start physical therapy next week for a rotator cuff injury in my right arm. I saw a specialist about it last week and he actually had the gall to tell me that my “posture is horrible” and that I need to have “posture training”! So, I start that on Tuesday. I guess it’s not surprising that I’m falling apart when you consider that I’ve exceeded my life expectancy for a non-modern Homo sapiens sapiens. If it were 1850, I’d be dead several times over by now.
Anyway, I will now set about getting back to updating the blog on a regular basis. Thank you for your patience.
Sundry