Victorian Mummy Mania and Sundry Weirdness
Added 2025-09-08 22:15:35 +0000 UTCMummia, mumia, or originally mummy referred to several different preparations in the history of medicine, from "mineral pitch" to "powdered human mummies". It originated from Arabic mūmiyā "a type of resinous bitumen found in Western Asia and used curatively" in traditional Islamic medicine, which was translated as pissasphaltus (from "pitch" and "asphalt") in ancient Greek medicine. In medieval European medicine, mūmiyā "bitumen" was transliterated into Latin as mumia meaning both "a bituminous medicine from Persia" and "mummy". Merchants in apothecaries dispensed expensive mummia bitumen, which was thought to be an effective cure-all for many ailments. It was also used as an aphrodisiac.
Comments
Okay but an episode on the Society of Psychical Research would be a hoot, because their files are truly bananas.
Denise Huston
2025-09-10 12:52:57 +0000 UTCMaybe if we had more medical school cadavers, we would have fewer surgeons who accidentally removed the liver instead of the spleen. I learned which one is on the right side and which one is on the left side from a medical school Canaveral (and yes, Gross anatomy texts.) and fully plan to allow the next generation of medical students to learn from my cadaver. I kind of wish I could watch them try to find my left kidney, which I donated six months ago.
Jacquelyn H Salas
2025-09-10 00:32:47 +0000 UTC
