New page, new sketches: More commissioned book sketches. Click-n-see! Might as well make 'em pull double duty, right?
And in case you didn't know, with Gene's nosiness, Dr. Bash's belongings have just taken a turn for the quacky.
Not so very long ago, there was an age when radiation was touted as a miracle cure-all, sort of the same way colloidal silver or shark cartilage are sold today. Like a lot of medical quackery, the patent medicine people took a grain of truth... the fact that extremely low levels of radioactivity, in the form of naturally emanating radon gas, were common in "health springs" thought to have curative properties... and ran with it. "Radioactive" was the "organic" of its day, and touted as imparting vigor and well-being. Radium was put into chocolate, toothpaste, contraceptives, suppositories, and beauty aids.
Special jugs were also sold to help irradiate your drinking water.
The doses of radiation a reasonable person could ingest from homemade irradiated water was ultimately harmless. But too much of the strong stuff, like Radithor, could rot your face off and turn your bones into brandy snaps. Fortunately, this eventually happened to someone important enough to annoy the general public, bringing about the end of the irradiated patent medicine boom and the sudden empowerment of a previously toothless little government office known as the FDA.
"Alternative medicine." Gotta love it.
Doctor Bash's house reminds me of the museum back home.... a lot of old stuff, some of it really wierd/questionable ^_^
Never trust a Harvard dropout..... those links are kooky. Sad we still have such a wacky range of medicine.....
*looks outside*
Run, the Naturopathic Doctors are coming!
ZOMG. I just realized that by reading your blog today, I actually LEARNED something! D: Damn you Spike! Damn you to heeeeeeellllllllllllllllll!
Holy Jesus I wish I hadn't clicked on those links. Now I am fascinated and must know all about how I can make big holes in my skull.
Oh. My. God. I look at the page, and there's Gene holding up a goddamitin' Revigator.
I love you, Spike.
Holy hell. That's cool.
All that collection needs is a drill for trepanation, some tinctures of mercury, and colloidal silver.
Dude, I need to get me some of that...
I know nothing about old fasioned alternative medicine, but I know enough simple chemistry that when I saw Radium Water, I went "... No. No way."
Then you are all like "Yes way!" And I was like "dude." So to reiterate, you rock.
Spike, you have the most amazing brain. Just knowing that tidbit about radiation curealls made my day.
I'm guessing Doctor Bash is a frequent seller to Kingdom Come, specifically the "Death" portion of the store?
Saw one of these in person at The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (back when it was on St. Anthony Main). I don't know if it is still the case now that the museum has moved to the Science Museum of Minnesota, but you used to be able to get your head examined with a 'working' psycograph. Still laugh when I see Doc Emmet Brown wearing a similar piece of head gear in Back to the Future.
Did you see this, Spike? From Paul Taylor over at Wapsi Square.
http://pablowapsi.livejournal.com/81876.html
Yay for trepaning! Trepaning was invented by a Roman doctor. I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he also invented/developed hollow needles and was a huge believer in sterilization. He was so far before his time that for decades historians thought his work was a hoax.
I'm in love with you because you know these things. And for many other reasons, but that is certainly one of them.
@Jala:
Actually trepanning is one of the oldest 'medical' procedures known to mankind and has been practiced since the Stone Ages. Amazingly, a lot of people apparently survived it, because quite a few skulls with healed trepanation wounds have been found.
It never really fell out of fashion, so maybe your Roman doctor was simply a very vocal proponent of it?
someone please take that away from gene before he drinks some
i think the German radioactive tooth paste is by far the best :P
Scip's just a big ol' worry-wart. That collection's pretty harmless. Most likely.
I mean, that syphilis-face is probably a wax-work, and the radioactive jar is about as harmful as those old red Fiestaware pieces that had the uranium glaze (i.e. not very harmful at all).
I guess Doctor Bash just has a hobby collecting old medical and quack-ical stuff.
What a colossal pussy.
I'm serious, Spike. If I wanted to see a six-and-a-half foot vagina manhandling medical fetishists with drinking problems, I'm sure the concept of webcest will make that an option the moment I hit "send." And I'm sure if I make my way over to that shiny new cluster of porn sites, I'm going to find Scipio in a new career as a marquee star. He's such a pussy.
That said, I wonder about Scipio and violence. At what point does his talent for violence meet his penchant for shrieking like a girl? Is there a crossover? Is there a clearly drawn line, the crossing of which shifts him from combat mode to tea-party mode? That would be interesting.
My history & philosophy of science lecturer, Neil, has a poster he likes to show first-years. It reads, "Hepburn Springs: Health-giving radioactive springwater," and shows a waterfall and a girl with beautiful butterfly wings filling a bowl of water from the pool. Presumably the wings are a mutation of some kind. :)