Popular medical errors / [James Bower Harrison].

  • Harrison, James Bower
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Popular medical errors / [James Bower Harrison]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    if the patient can be set right on that particular subject, a cure will be effected. There is a story, and a very good one too, in the “ Diary of a Late Physician,” which, if I remember it rightly, turns on this idea. A man is repre- sented as imagining his head to be placed on his shoulders the wrong way. For this insane idea a physician is consulted, who hits upon an expedient which is attended with the happiest results. The j)hyslclan enters into his patient’s conceit, condoles with him on his misfortune, and assures him that nothing but a severe operation can possibly rescue him from his calamity. The operation is no other than that of turning his head back to its right place. A room is accordingly darkened, and, by the aid of an electric shock, he is made to suppose that his head is wrenched round to its former posi- tion. His dress, which he had worn to cor- respond to his own notions, being at the same time set straight. This completely disabuses him of his delusion, and he rises a changed man. The story is called the “ Turned Head.” It is rather too bad to spoil a good story, and espe- cially as it is the only funny one in a remark- ably pathetic book; yet truth must be told. II
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