Free Republic

Behold, an X-ray of Hitler’s head You're looking at one of five known X-rays of Hitler's head. The radiograph is just one of 17-million rare, intriguing, and often-bizarre items housed in the the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the largest medical library on Earth. We've got a gallery. This particular image is part of a larger medical dossier on Hitler that was assembled by U.S. military intelligence following World War II, and one of the 450 images featured in Hidden Treasure — a book published yesterday in observance of the National Library of Medicine's 175th anniversary. Hitler as Seen by...

Alien Hand Syndrome. Fans of "Dr. Strangelove" will recall the title character's inability to control his right hand, which kept trying to give a Nazi salute. Real-life sufferers of AHS (only a few dozen to date) lose conscious control of a limb, probably due to a lost connection between brain hemispheres. The "alien" hand may thwart what the other hand is doing, such as unbuttoning a shirt the other hand is buttoning, or tamping out a cigarette the other hand has just lit. Symptoms can be managed by keeping the rogue hand preoccupied by giving it an object to hold...

Quackwatch Home Page The Goat Gland Doctor: The Story of John R. Brinkley Joe Schwarcz, Ph.D. The remarkable events I'm going to chronicle here would likely never have unfolded, in 1917, if young Dr. John Brinkley had not been hired as house doctor at the Swift meatpacking company, located in Kansas. He was dazzled by the vigorous mating activities of the goats destined for the slaughterhouse. A couple of years later, after Brinkley had gone into private practice in Milford, Kansas, a farmer named Stittsworth came to see him. Stittsworth complained of a sagging libido. Recalling the goats' frantic antics,...