Tuberculosis is an infectious disease of historic proportions.  Not only is it still around, infecting an estimated 10+million people in 2021 alone, but in a prior era, in Victorian England, having tuberculosis became something of a fashion achievement, believe it or not.  In this episode, we'll explore how having this awful and deadly disease--especially in a time before antibiotics--became almost desirable in a twisted way.  From corsets to fainting to so much more!    References Global Tubercolosis Report 2021 (WHO): https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/978924 ..read more

This episode will be a deviation from our normal format.  Unfortunately, the entire episode we'd recorded for release this week was lost to the cyberspace aether.  A whole episode just gone from existence.  Discovering this with no time to re-record, we decided to release something previously unheard: a Poor Historians Podcast pilot episode. We had played with several formats for the show and this episode was one such project.  It's a brief radio drama about Dr. William Beaumont, a famous surgeon, who happened to treat a fur trader named Alexis St. Martin for a gunshot wou ..read more

As the resident Doctor of Osteopathy (D.O.) on this podcast, Max will lead his MD colleagues through an examination of the roots of osteopathic medicine from its founding by Andrew Taylor Still, its quest to re-define medicine, and its eventual growth into the medical profession it is today.  If you've ever wondered why some doctors have D.O. after their name, this episode will hopefully explain it all.  This is one of those stories in medical history that does have a happy ending, in our humble opinion. Sources: https://books.google.com/books?id=H08EAAAAMBAJ&q=andrew+taylor+sti ..read more

We'll look inward this week to talk about the history of our own specialty as emergency physicians.  People may not be aware that the practice of emergency medicine is relatively new in the house of medicine.  Before the 1970's the ER was a very different place as you'll find out.   Link to documentary called 24/7/365 on the topic discussed in episode (courtesy of EMRA - the Emergency Medicine Residents' Association):  https://www.emra.org/about-emra/publications/legacy-documentary/#247365documentary Sources: https://www.annemergmed.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0196-0644%2804%2 ..read more

With the success of "The Last of Us" show, we thought we'd take some time to look at historically important cases of fungal infection.  We'll investigate a possible explanation for all those witch trials of yesteryear as well as a common childhood fungal infection that accounted for quite the degree of social upheaval in Victorian England.   Also, we'll have our first entry in Mike's mailbag segment.  Tune in to see if he gets the question correct.  Full show notes on our website. References: https://microbialcell.com/researcharticles/2020a-kainz-microbial-cell/ overvie ..read more

There are many misconceptions and myths surrounding the death of the great magician and skeptic, Harry Houdini.  Though many believe he may have died during one of his dangerous escape performances, the truth leads to a common diagnosis with a possible uncommon and unusual cause.    FYI: Full show notes will be posted to our website. Sources: -https://www.thehistoryreader.com/historical-figures/death-escape-artist-harry-houdini-appendicitis-surgery/ -https://cbc.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/02012014-AS.pdf -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini#Death -https://pubmed ..read more

In this week's episode we'll trace back the beginnings of the modern intensive care unit and critical care medicine as we know it.  Much of this arose thanks to two particular infectious diseases--polio and tetanus.  Tune in to find out how intrepid Danish physicians collaborated to save the lives of people dying from these diseases and ultimately led to a whole new concept in medicine--the ability to devote intense care to try and save a life. Source: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-power-and-peril-of-the-icu-gaffney   Sponsor: Artery InkUse promo code PHPOD at Artery Ink ..read more

We're back! Many people know that insulin is an important part of the treatment for diabetes.  In this episode we'll talk about how insulin was discovered and first used to treat a disease that, throughout the whole of human history, was previously fatal.  We'll explain what diabetes is, how it used to be treated in the age before insulin, and how a brilliant cohort including a Canadian orthopedic surgeon and fellow scientists finally figured out a revolutionary way to treat this disease.  We'll also discuss a bit of unsavory history regarding the pharmaceutical industry which ..read more

Apologies but we'll have to delay the episode another week.  Technical issues + scheduling conflicts + illness have all made for difficulty getting the episode done on our usual schedule.   Also, the podcast will be moving back to releases every two weeks.  Good changes in Max's career have unfortunately overtaken the free time he'd had to increase the show output.  So, starting next Thursday we'll have the next episode out and be returning to our every two week release schedule.  Hopefully this ensures we can continue to put the right amount of time and effort into t ..read more

While we've discussed numerous famous Victorian era surgeons, we haven't taken this deep of a dive into their facilities.  This week we bring you a conversation with Monica Walker, PhD, all the way from London, England.   This episode runs a bit longer than the others but that's just where the interview took us.  So many neat tidbits.  We'll talk about some of the common surgical procedures performed in the Old Op Theatre, some of the famous surgeons who practiced there, and Dr. Walker will give a fascinating account of what surgery in that space looked like.   There ..read more