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The Two-headed Boy, And Other Medical Marvels | 
 enlarge | Author: Jan Bondeson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 285428
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 295
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 080148958X
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN: 9780801489587
ASIN: 080148958X
Publication Date: September 15, 2004
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Please, don't stare. Dr. Jan Bondeson, author of The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels, aims to humanize his subjects and move beyond the standard exploitation of people with extremely visible medical anomalies. Though one might say that he benefits from our undeniable fascination with the extraordinarily different, he writes brief but thorough biographies that show real, three-dimensional people underneath the hair and horns. His medical understanding rivals his historical acuity, and the reader will find the interwoven threads of science and culture breathtaking. Perhaps most intriguing is Bondeson's analysis of eccentric tales with little or no physical documentary evidence, such as the egg-laying Scotsman or the Irish gentlelady who was said to have given birth to 365 babies at once. He finds many convincing after stripping them of contemporary superstition and embellishment; this should motivate greater interest in seeking out nonmedical anomalies for deeper research. Fans of good, old-fashioned freak shows will enjoy the profuse, often charming illustrations and the final chapter on men and women reputed to eat such delicacies as stones and live animals long before Ozzy Osbourne made headlines. The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels will surprise those looking strictly for cheap thrills, though--the subjects are too human to treat lightly. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
A successor to his popular book A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, this new collection of essays by Jan Bondeson illustrates various anomalies of human development, the lives of the remarkable individuals concerned, and social reactions to their extraordinary bodies. Bondeson examines historical cases of dwarfism, extreme corpulence, giantism, conjoined twins, dicephaly, and extreme hairiness; his broader theme, however, is the infinite range of human experience. The dicephalous Tocci brothers and Lazarus Colloredo (from whose belly grew his malformed conjoined twin), the Swedish giant, and the king of Poland's dwarf--Bondeson considers these individuals not as "freaks" but as human beings born with sometimes appalling congenital deformities. He makes full use of original French, German, Dutch, Polish, and Scandinavian sources and explores elements of ethnology, literature, and cultural history in his diagnoses. Heavily illustrated with woodcuts, engravings, oil paintings, and photographs, The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels combines a scientist's scrutiny with a humanist's wonder at the endurance of the human spirit. Contents The Two Inseparable Brothers, and a Preface The Hairy Maid at the Harpsichord The Stone-child The Woman Who Laid an Egg The Strangest Miracle in the World Some Words about Hog-faced Gentlewomen Horned Humans The Biddenden Maids The Tocci Brothers, and Other Dicephali The King of Poland's Court Dwarf Daniel Cajanus, the Swedish Giant Daniel Lambert, the Human Colossus Cat-eating Englishmen and French Frog-swallowers
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| Customer Reviews:
 Guilty pleasures justified March 12, 2007
Jan Bondeson, a prolific, multilingual medical lecturer, has made a career of popularizing medical curiosities, but unlike other popularizes, he has also published technical studies of the same subjects -- some famous, some unearthed from ancient libraries -- in professional journals.
Thus, he brings a dose of medical sophistication and historical rigor to a topic that is, understandably, often treated shallowly.
As it turns out, not all the curiosities in "The Two-headed Boy" are medical. At least two are psychological only -- fakes.
The history of how fakes were understood before they were understood to be fakes has its own interest. Although the reader interested only in sensational freaks will find plenty of them here, lavishly illustrated, too, the presentation is likely to be offputting for the casual gawker. Bondeson himself has little use for such, whether rude yokels or elegant townies.
Well, it is a dangerous thing to delve into such a field without finding scoffers to point out that the writer and/or the reviewer may be deluding himself about his higher motives.
Nevertheless, as human beings with just one head (if that), our fascination for those with more than one is both very human and, if deftly handled, a legitimate exploration of social understanding as much as of organic pathology.
Bondeson is deft.
While it can never have been socially fashionable to grow up with two heads or covered with hair or sprouting horns, it was arguably worse to do so in premodern Europe. Almost all of Bondeson's examples come from Europe, although many of the older ones from regions where few English-speakers can navigate the libraries as well as Bondeson, a Swede, can.
In the old days of isolated villages, the life of a freak could be more or less tolerable or a hell on earth depending on the attitude of those who spread the news -- whether vicious gossips, humane farmers, greedy doctors or -- probably worst of all -- preachers. Bad enough to be born disfigured without some priest deciding you (or perhaps your mother) have sinned.
That we moderns are not always any more advanced is revealed in Bondeson's discussion of separating Siamese twins, the part of the book that can most easily claim the high ground.
Although "The Two-headed Boy" was published as recently as 2000, it is refreshingly free of po-mo claptrap. It is a surprise, a good one, not to have to endure trivial and shallow explanations that freaks are "others" whose social status is "gendered" or colonized or whatnot. In other words, Bondeson is an old-fashioned scholar, in the best sense of the word.
 A sensitive treatment of a difficult subject March 6, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Especially interesting to me was the chapter on conjoined twins, and the stories about early attemps at separation - some successful, some not.
I, too had heard the story about the woman who had a litter of 365 - 182 male, 182 female, and one freemartin - and he's right, IMHO it was a hydatiform mole and nobody would mistake that for babies.
another great book from Jan Bondeson March 21, 2002
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
although we are taught that our interests in "freaks" is wrong and twisted, Jan Bondeson challenges this idea and takes us back to a time when such curiosity was normal and accepted, and some freaks were like rock stars. This book is intelligent, well written, insightful and very interesting. With excellent research Mr. Bondeson shows us how these people lived, some of their joys and many of their sorrows. He deconstructs some of the mythology that surronds these people and their stories. He shows us formost that they are simply people. I highly recomment it.
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