With the average medical textbook now over one thousand pages long and newspapers daily devoting many columns to health issues, no individual can know more than the bare essentials of the subject. What better then than to dip into a small book covering only the amazing, the bizarre, and the amusing?
This fascinating collection of medically-related items will inform, tantalize, and infuriate you by turns. How can you tell if a murder victim was left- or right-handed? How many euphemisms can you think of for unmentionable parts of the body? What has chickenpox got to do with chickens? Who has played Doc Holliday in the movies? Does a famous doctor share your birthday? We challenge you not to find something unexpected on every page nor to smile, or groan, at almost every entry. How much do you know already? How much will you be able to remember? After much dipping in and out, or from referring to the topic-based index, you will know what '100 per cent proof' really means for an alcoholic drink and what the effect of drinking Ayahuasca is. You will also know when two doctors in casualty earnestly discuss your 'UBI', they have smelt your breath and are talking about your 'unexplained beer injury'. Some facts just are more memorable than others... First published 2005.
