Freaks: The Pig-Faced Lady of Manchester Quare and Other Medical Marvels by Jan Bondeson |
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Please don't stare. Dr Jan Bondeson, author of The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels, aims to humanise his subjects and move beyond the standard exploitation of people with extremely visible medical anomalies. Though one might say that he benefits from our undeniable fascination with the extraordinarily different, he writes brief but thorough biographies that show real, three-dimensional people underneath the hair and horns. His medical understanding rivals his historical acuity and the reader will find the interwoven threads of science and culture breathtaking.
Please don't stare. Dr Jan Bondeson, author of The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels, aims to humanise his subjects and move beyond the standard exploitation of people with extremely visible medical anomalies. Though one might say that he benefits from our undeniable fascination with the extraordinarily different, he writes brief but thorough biographies that show real, three-dimensional people underneath the hair and horns. His medical understanding rivals his historical acuity and the reader will find the interwoven threads of science and culture breathtaking.
Perhaps most intriguing is Bondeson's analysis of eccentric tales with little or no physical documentary evidence, such as the egg-laying Scotsman or the Irish gentle-lady who was said to have given birth to 365 babies at once. He finds many convincing after stripping them of contemporary superstition and embellishment; motivating greater interest in seeking out non-medical anomalies for deeper research. Fans of good old-fashioned freak shows will enjoy the profuse, often charming illustrations and the final chapter on men and women reputed to eat such delicacies as stones and live animals long before Ozzy Osborne made headlines. The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels will surprise those looking strictly for cheap thrills, though the subjects are too human to treat lightly. --Rob Lightner
Synopsis
This collection of essays illustrates various anomalies of human development, the lives of the remarkable individuals concerned and social reactions to the extraordinary bodies. Jan Bondeson examines historical cases of dwarfism, extreme corpulence, giantism, conjoined twins, dicephaly and extreme hairiness; his broader theme however, is the infinite range of human experience. The dicephalous Tocci brothers and Lazarus colloredo (from whose belly grew his malformed conjoined twin), the Swedish giant and the king of Poland's dwarf - Bondeson considers these individuals not as "freaks" but as human beings born with sometimes appalling congential deformities. He makes use of original French, German, Dutch, Polish and Scandinavian sources and explores elements of ethnology, literature and cultural history in his diagnoses. The heavily illustrated book combines a scientist's scrutiny with a humanist's wonder at the endurance of the human spirit.
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