The Sawbones Book

A compelling, often hilarious and occasionally horrifying exploration of how modern medicine came to be!

Wondering whether eating powdered mummies might be just the thing to cure your ills? Tempted by those vintage ads suggesting you wear radioactive underpants for virility? Ever considered drilling a hole in your head to deal with those pesky headaches? Probably not. But for thousands of years, people have done things like this—and things that make radioactive underpants seem downright sensible! In their hit podcast, Sawbones, Sydnee and Justin McElroy breakdown the weird and wonderful way we got to modern healthcare. And some of the terrifying detours along the way.

Every week, Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin amaze, amuse, and gross out (depending on the week) hundreds of thousands of avid listeners to their podcast, Sawbones. Consistently rated a top podcast on iTunes, with over 15 million total downloads, this rollicking journey through thousands of years of medical mishaps and miracles is not only hilarious but downright educational. While you may never even consider applying boiled weasel to your forehead (once the height of sophistication when it came to headache cures), you will almost certainly face some questionable medical advice in your everyday life (we’re looking at you, raw water!) and be better able to figure out if this is a miracle cure (it’s not) or a scam.

Table of Contents:

Part One: The Unnerving

The Resurrection Men

Fun w Galvanism

Weird Weight Loss

Miracle Cure: Opium

Black Plague

Heroes of Misguided Medicine: Pliny the Elder

Erectile Dysfunction

The Doctor Is In: Listener Questions Answered

Don’t Drill a Hole in Your Head

Part Two: The Gross

Mummy Medicine

The Guthole Bromance

The Unkillable Phineas Gage

Max Drank Poopy Water

Heroes of Misguided Medicine: Robert Liston

Golden Showers of Health

Miracle Cure-All: Radium

Dr. John Romulus Brinkley

The Doctor Is In QA

Just (Four) Humour Me

The Camel Dung Miracle

Part Three: The Weird

The Dancing Plague

Bad Medicine: Tobacco for Health

The Seasick-Proof Saloon

Miracle Cure-All: Vinegar

The Doctor Is In QA

Heroes of Misguided Medicine

Part Four: The Awesome

The Poison Squad

Bad Medicine: Self Experimentation

Eat Your Chocolate!

Heroes of Misguided Medicine

Parrot Fever

Miracle Cure-All: Honey

The Miraculous Polio Vaccine

The Doctor Is In