In the fifth episode of the Bizzarro Bazar Web Series: the incredible case of Mary Toft, one of the biggest scandals in early medical history; an antique and macabre vase; the most astounding statue ever made. [Be sure to turn on English captions.]
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Back with Bizzarro Bazar’s mix of exotic and quirky trouvailles, quite handy when it comes to entertaining your friends and acting like the one who’s always telling funny stories. Please grin knowingly when they ask you where in the world you find all this stuff.
We already talked about killer rabbits in the margins of medieval books. Now a funny video unveils the mystery of another great classic of illustrated manuscripts: snail-fighting knights. SPOILER: it’s those vicious Lumbards again.
As an expert on alternative sexualities, Ayzad has developed a certain aplomb when discussing the most extreme and absurd erotic practices — in Hunter Thompson’s words, “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro“. Yet even a shrewd guy like him was baffled by the most deranged story in recent times: the Nazi furry scandal.
In 1973, Playboy asked Salvador Dali to collaborate with photographer Pompeo Posar for an exclusive nude photoshoot. The painter was given complete freedom and control over the project, so much so that he was on set directing the shooting. Dali then manipulated the shots produced during that session through collage. The result is a strange and highly enjoyable example of surrealism, eggs, masks, snakes and nude bunnies. The Master, in a letter to the magazine, calimed to be satisfied with the experience: “The meaning of my work is the motivation that is of the purest – money. What I did for Playboy is very good, and your payment is equal to the task.” (Grazie, Silvia!)
Speaking of photography, Robert Shults dedicated his series The Washing Away of Wrongs to the biggest center for the study of decomposition in the world, the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University. Shot in stark, high-contrast black and white as they were shot in the near-infrared spectrum, these pictures are really powerful and exhibit an almost dream-like quality. They document the hard but necessary work of students and researchers, who set out to understand the modifications in human remains under the most disparate conditions: the ever more precise data they gather will become invaluable in the forensic field. You can find some more photos in this article, and here’s Robert Shults website.
One last photographic entry. Swedish photographer Erik Simander produced a series of portraits of his grandfather, after he just became a widower. The loneliness of a man who just found himself without his life’s companion is described through little details (the empty sink, with a single toothbrush) that suddenly become definitive, devastating symbols of loss; small, poetic and lacerating touches, delicate and painful at the same time. After all, grief is a different feeling for evry person, and Simander shows a commendable discretion in observing the limit, the threshold beyond which emotions become too personal to be shared. A sublime piece of work, heart-breaking and humane, and which has the merit of tackling an issue (the loss of a partner among the elderly) still pretty much taboo. This theme had already been brought to the big screen in 2012 by the ruthless and emotionally demanding Amour, directed by Michael Haneke.
Speaking of widowers, here’s a great article on another aspect we hear very little about: the sudden sex-appeal of grieving men, and the emotional distress it can cause.
To return to lighter subjects, here’s a spectacular pincushion seen in an antique store (spotted and photographed by Emma).
Are you looking for a secluded little place for your vacations, Arabian nights style? You’re welcome.
The inimitable Lindsey Fitzharris published on her Chirurgeon’s Apprenticea cute little post about surgical removal of bladder stones before the invention of anesthesia. Perfect read to squirm deliciously in your seat.
I ignore how or why things re-surface at a certain time on the Net. And yet, for the last few days (at least in my whacky internet bubble) the story of Portuguese serial killer Diogo Alves has been popping out again and again. Not all of Diogo Alves, actually — just his head, which is kept in a jar at the Faculty of Medicine in Lisbon. But what really made me chuckle was discovering one of the “related images” suggested by Google algorythms:
Diogo’s head…
…Radiohead.
Remember the Tsavo Man-Eaters? There’s a very good Italian article on the whole story — or you can read the English Wiki entry. (Thanks, Bruno!)
And finally we get to the most succulent news: my old native town, Vicenza, proved to still have some surprises in store for me.
On the hills near the city, in the Arcugnano district, a pre-Roman amphitheatre has just been discovered. It layed buried for thousands of years… it could accomodate up to 4300 spectators and 300 actors, musicians, dancers… and the original stage is still there, underwater beneath the small lake… and there’s even a cave which acted as a megaphone for the actors’ voices, amplifying sounds from 8 Hz to 432 Hz… and there’s even a nearby temple devoted to Janus… and that temple was the real birthplace of Juliet, of Shakespearean fame… and there are even traces of ancient canine Gods… and of the passage of Julius Cesar and Cleopatra…. and… and…
And, pardon my rudeness, wouldn’t all this happen to be a hoax?
No, it’s not a mere hoax, it is an extraordinary hoax. A stunt that would deserve a slow, admired clap, if it wasn’t a plain fraud.
The creative spirit behind the amphitheatre is the property owner, Franco Malosso von Rosenfranz (the name says it all). Instead of settling for the traditional Italian-style unauthorized development — the classic two or three small houses secretely and illegally built — he had the idea of faking an archeological find just to scam tourists. Taking advantage of a license to build a passageway between two parts of his property, so that the constant flow of trucks and bulldozers wouldn’t raise suspicions, Malosso von Rosenfranz allegedly excavated his “ancient” theatre, with the intention of opening it to the public at the price of 40 € per visitor, and to put it up for hire for big events.
Together with the initial enthusiasm and popularity on social networks, unfortunately came legal trouble. The evidence against Malosso was so blatant from the start, that he immediately ended up on trial without any preliminary hearing. He is charged with unauthorized building, unauthorized manufacturing and forgery.
Therefore, this wonderful example of Italian ingenuity will be dismanteled and torn down; but the amphitheatre website is fortunately still online, a funny fanta-history jumble devised to back up the real site. A messy mixtre of references to local figures, famous characters from the Roman Era, supermarket mythology and (needless to say) the omnipresent Templars.
The ultimate irony is that there are people in Arcugnano still supporting him because, well, “at least now we have a theatre“. After all, as the Wiki page on unauthorized building explains, “the perception of this phenomenon as illegal […] is so thin that such a crime does not entail social reprimand for a large percentage of the population. In Italy, this malpractice has damaged and keeps damaging the economy, the landscape and the culture of law and respect for regulations“.
And here resides the brilliance of old fox Malosso von Rosenfranz’s plan: to cash in on these times of post-truth, creating an unauthorized building which does not really degrade the territory, but rather increase — albeit falsely — its heritage.
Well, you might have got it by now. I am amused, in a sense. My secret chimeric desire is that it all turns out to be an incredible, unprecedented art installations. Andthat Malosso one day might confess that yes, it was all a huge experiment to show how little we care abot our environment and landscape, how we leave our authenticarcheological wonders fall apart, and yet we are ready to stand up for the fake ones. (Thanks, Silvietta!)
Tomorrow I will be at Winchester University to take part in a three-day interdisciplinary conference focusing on Death, art and anatomy. My talk will focus on memento mori in relation to the Capuchin Crypt in Rome — which, together with other Italian religious ossuaries, I explored in my Mors Pretiosa.
Waiting to tell you more about the event, and about the following days I will spend in London, I leave you with some curiosities to savour.
SynDaver Labs, which already created a synthetic cadaver for autopsies (I wrote about it in this post), is developing a canine version for veterinary surgery training. This puppy, like his human analogue, can breathe, bleed and even die.
Even if it turned out to be fake, this would still be one of the tastiest news in recent times: in Sculcoates, East Yorks, some ghost hunters were visiting a Nineteenth century cemetery when they suddenly heard some strange, eerie moanings. Ghost monks roaming through the graves? A demonic presence haunting this sacred place? None of the above. In the graveyard someone was secretely shooting a porno.
Speaking of unusual places to make love, why not inside a whale? It happened in the 1930s at Gotheburg Museum of Natural History, hosting the only completely taxidermied blue whale inside of which a lounge was built, equipped with benches and carpets. After a couple was caught having sex in there, the cetacean was unfortunately closed to the public.
In case you’ve missed it, there was also a man who turned a whale’s carcass into a theatre.
The borders of medieval manuscripts sometimes feature rabbits engaged in unlikely battles and different cruelties. Why? According to this article, it was basically a satire.
If you think warmongering rabbits are bizarre, wait until you see cats with jetpacks on their backs, depicted in some Sixteenth century miniatures. Here is a National Geographic article about them.
One last iconographic enigma. What was the meaning of the strange Sixteenth century engravings showing a satyr fathoming a woman’s private parts with a plumb line? An in-depth and quite beautiful study (sorry, Italian only) unveils the mystery.
Did the terrible “Blood Eagle” torture really exist? Some historians doubt it.
Adventurous lives: Violet Constance Jessop was an ocean liner stewardess who in 1911 survived the Olympia ship incident. Then in 1912 she survived the sinking of the Titanic. And in 1916 the sinking of the Britannic.
Il 19 novembre 1726 un breve ma insolito articolo apparve sul Weekly Journal, giornale inglese:
“Da Guildford ci arriva una strana ma ben testimoniata notizia. Che una povera donna che vive a Godalmin, vicino alla città, è stata il mese scorso aiutata da Mr. John Howard, Eminente Chirurgo e Ostetrico, a partorire una creatura che assomigliava ad un coniglio, ma con cuore e polmoni cresciuti fuori dal torace, 14 giorni dopo che lo stesso medico le aveva fatto partorire un coniglio perfettamente formato; e pochi giorni dopo, altri 4; e venerdì, sabato e domenica, un altro coniglio al giorno; e tutti e nove morti vedendo la luce. La donna ha giurato che due mesi fa, lavorando in un campo con altre donne, incontrarono un coniglio e lo rincorsero senza un motivo: questo creò in lei un desiderio così forte che (essendo incinta) abortì il suo bambino, e da quel momento non è capace di evitare di pensare ai conigli”.
Letta così sembra una di quelle leggende scaturite dall’idea, diffusa all’epoca, che qualsiasi cosa impressionasse la mente di una donna incinta (un sogno, o un animale veduto durante la gravidanza) poteva marchiare in qualche modo anche il feto, dando origine a difetti di nascita. Eppure questa storia si sarebbe presto tramutata in uno dei più grossi scandali medici degli albori.
La donna dell’articolo era Mary Toft, contadina di 24 o 25 anni, sposata e con tre figli. Come tutte le compaesane, Mary non aveva smesso il lavoro nei campi con la gravidanza; e quando, nell’agosto precedente, aveva avvertito dei dolori al ventre, si era accorta con orrore di aver espulso dei pezzi di carne. Poteva forse essere un aborto, ma stranamente la gravidanza continuò e quando il 27 settembre Mary partorì, uscirono soltanto delle parti che sembravano animali. Questi resti vennero inviati a John Howard, il medico citato nell’articolo, che inizialmente si dimostrò scettico. Si recò ciononostante a visitare Mary Toft ed esaminandola non trovò nulla di strano; eppure nei giorni successivi le doglie ricominciarono, e nuove parti di animali continuarono a essere espulse dall’utero della donna: gambe di gatto, gambe di coniglio, budella e altri pezzi di animali irriconoscibili.
A quel punto la storia stava cominciando a fare scalpore, anche perché la stampa esisteva da poco, ed era la prima volta che un caso simile veniva seguito contemporaneamente, “in diretta”, in tutta l’Inghilterra. Un altro chirurgo, Nathaniel St. André, si interessò al caso, e su ordine della Famiglia Reale si recò a Guildford, dove Howard aveva condotto Mary Toft offrendo a chiunque dubitasse della storia di assistere a uno degli straordinari parti. Nel frattempo la donna aveva infatti dato alla luce altri tre conigli, non completamente formati, che apparentemente scalciavano nell’utero prima di morire e venire espulsi.
St. André, arrivato a Guildford, potè quindi investigare il caso direttamente e restò impressionato: il 15 novembre, nel giro di poche ore, Mary Toft partorì il torso di un coniglio. St. André esaminò il torso, immerse i polmoni in acqua per vedere se l’animale avesse respirato aria (e infatti i polmoni galleggiavano) ed esaminò accuratamente la donna. La sua diagnosi fu che i conigli si sviluppavano sicuramente all’interno delle tube di Falloppio. Nei giorni seguenti dall’utero della donna uscirono un altro torso, la pelle di un coniglio e, pochi minuti dopo, la testa.
Il re Giorgio I, affascinato dalla storia, decise di inviare un altro medico a Guildford: si trattava di Cyriacus Ahlers – e questa fu la svolta. Ahlers, infatti, era segretamente scettico sull’intera vicenda, e tenne gli occhi ben aperti. Non trovò segni di effettiva gravidanza sulla donna, ma anzi notò una cosa piuttosto sospetta: prima dei famosi parti, la donna sembrava stringere le ginocchia come per impedire che qualcosa cadesse. Ahlers cominciò a dubitare anche di Howard, l’ostetrico, che si rifiutava di lasciare che fosse Ahlers ad assistere la donna durante le contrazioni. Non lasciò trapelare i suoi dubbi, ma disse a tutti i presenti di credere alla storia, e con una scusa lasciò Guildford, portando con sé alcuni pezzi di coniglio. Esaminandoli con più cura, scoprì che sembravano essere stati macellati con uno strumento da taglio, e notò tracce di grano e paglia nei loro intestini, come se provenissero da un allevamento. Riportò tutto questo al Re e in poco tempo lo scandalo esplose.
Mary fu portata a Londra e alloggiata in carcere, per ulteriori esami, e nella comunità scientifica si formarono immediatamente due fazioni: da una parte gli scettici, Ahlers in prima linea; dall’altra Howard e St. André, che erano convinti sostenitori della genuinità dei prodigiosi eventi. La stampa diede eccezionale risonanza al dibattito e le cose precipitarono quando un inserviente della prigione ammise di essere stato corrotto dalla cognata di Mary Toft affinché introducesse un coniglio nella cella della donna.
Il 7 dicembre, dopo essere stata esaminata da decine di medici e sottoposta ad estenuanti interrogatori e alle minacce di una dolorosa operazione chirurgica, Mary Toft cedette e confessò: era stata tutta una truffa. Dopo il suo aborto spontaneo, quando la cervice era ancora dilatata, aveva con l’aiuto di un complice inserito nell’utero le zampe e il corpo di un gatto, e la testa di un coniglio. In seguito, le parti di animali erano state posizionate più esternamente, nella vagina. Mary Toft venne immediatamente incarcerata con l’accusa di “vile truffa e impostura”. Anche i diversi medici implicati, Howard e St. André su tutti, vennero citati in tribunale e a loro discolpa si dichiararono all’oscuro della frode.
Ma lo smascheramento dell’inganno fu una bomba soprattutto per l’immagine della medicina nell’opinione pubblica: articoli satirici apparvero in ogni giornale, prendendosi beffa della credulità dei chirurghi implicati nel caso, e dei medici tout court. Le ballate popolari si incentrarono immediatamente sui dettagli più volgari della vicenda e le barzellette si affollarono di conigli maliziosi e grandi luminari della scienza fatti fessi da una contadina. La risonanza fu internazionale e persino Voltaire, dalla Francia, indicò il caso di Mary Toft come un esempio di quanto gli Inglesi protestanti fossero influenzati da una Chiesa ignorante e da antiche superstizioni.
La professione sanitaria venne talmente danneggiata in poco tempo che decine e decine di medici cercarono disperatamente di dichiararsi estranei ai fatti o di provare che erano stati fin dall’inizio scettici sul caso. Molte carriere vennero stroncate dall’abbaglio preso, e altre ci misero lustri a riprendersi dal tonfo.
La folla stazionava davanti alla prigione in cui Mary Toft era rinchiusa, nella speranza di vederla anche solo di sfuggita. Nel 1727 Mary fu liberata e tornò a casa. Da allora di lei si seppe poco, se non che ebbe una figlia e qualche altro piccolo guaio con la legge, fino alla sua morte nel 1763. Ma nonostante questo suo forzato “ritiro” dalle scene, il suo nome visse ancora a lungo nelle canzoni, e venne immancabilmente rispolverato ogni volta che i grandi geni della scienza facevano un clamoroso, ridicolo passo falso.
