Categories
History Holocaust World War II

D’oh! How’d I become a Nazi?

Here’s a bummer of a bit of information that some elderly Germans are discovering: Hundreds of elderly Germans are being confronted with the revelation that they were recruited into the Nazi party during the second world war. Historians researching Nazi party archives in Frankfurt have discovered that a string of prominent Germans were among those […]

Categories
Announcements Blogging History Medicine Religion Science

One to add to the blogroll…

While perusing my comments yesterday, I became aware of what looks like a promising new blog, Occam’s Trowel by Scott Prinster. Check out his self-description: Scott Prinster is continuing his graduate studies in the History of Science department at the University of Wisconsin. His current interest is in the interaction of religion and science in […]

Categories
History Medicine

Before paging systems…

Given that my electronic leash is always with me and that ubiquitous pagers and cell phones make doctors reachable 24 hours a day, it’s amazing to contemplate a time when a PA system at a hospital was considered new and high tech: I especially like the part touting the volume control, as if that were […]

Categories
Entertainment/culture History Humor Medicine

I poured a death potion for my sick baby!

I love these old ads. Remember, keep fresh batteries in your house or you might poison your baby! The tag line sounds almost like the reaction of an antivaccination loon to the polio vaccine.

Categories
History Medicine News of the Weird

A bit of “irrational exuberance” about medical breakthroughs from the 1930’s

There are lots of medical discoveries today that are breathlessly hyped far beyond what their actual benefits are likely to be. This, apparently, is not a new phenomenon, as this story shows. (Click on the pictures above for larger images of all four pages of the article, which appeared in 1939.) On the other hand, […]