The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth summary

If you’ve ever been a fan of medical TV shows, there’s one common scenario you’re unlikely to forget. It begins with an anguished patient in the hospital emergency room, complaining of a mystifying set of vague but painful symptoms. 

The patient seems sheepish, maybe even a tad guilty. And bit by bit, the reason for this becomes clear: this embarrassed and unfortunate patient has put something in a place it was never meant to go – and somehow, it got stuck.

When you visit the doctor, you probably expect that any treatment you’re prescribed will eventually make you better. Whether it’s a course of antibiotics or a change to your diet, we all imagine that following the doctor’s orders is the best way to heal whatever ails us.

These days, we’re probably right. But in the past, the “remedies” prescribed by doctors could be every bit as bad as the illnesses they were designed to treat. 

Nowadays, the prospect of having an operation isn’t necessarily daunting. You’re put on a stretcher, given an anesthetic, and wake up a few hours later, minus an appendix. What could be easier?

Unfortunately for patients in former times, things haven’t always been quite so painless. Anesthesia only became available in the second half of the nineteenth century; before that,operations were often excruciating.

Most of the time, people become famous because they’ve done something exceptional. Movie stars, Olympic athletes, and renowned musicians – to name just a few – all earn their reputations by excelling in their chosen fields. But every so often, and against the odds, a person becomes famous not for something they’ve done but for something they’ve failed to do: namely, to die.

Thomas Tipple is the nineteenth century’s most prominent death-defying celebrity. One fateful day in June 1812, Tipple was unharnessing a horse from its carriage when the animal jolted violently forward without any warning.

When it comes to medicine, the old saying is true: truth really is stranger than fiction. Given the number of absurd, humorous, and incredible stories to be found in the annals of medical history, you’d be forgiven for assuming that inventing tall tales would be a pointless and unpopular task. 

However, old medical journals, despite their best precautions, did sometimes publish accounts of impossible illnesses and imaginary cures.