The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine

Delightfully horrifying. * Popular Science *A delightful romp through a myriad of entertaining, arcane and obscure medical anecdotes. Fascinating and entertaining… a curious window into a vitalistic era of medical practice. – Adrian Woolfson * Wall Street Journal *A witty account of bizarre medical tales from history. Read it, weep and be very grateful for modern medicine. * Daily Express *Blending fascinating history with cutting wit, surgical historian Thomas Morris mines the medical journals and explores some of the strangest cases that have perplexed doctors across the world. * Big Issue *A Ripley-esque collection of ‘compellingly disgusting, hilarious, or downright bizarre’ medical oddities… accompanied by the author’s witty and often humorous, colloquial commentary. * Kirkus Reviews *Replete with tales such as “the human pincushion” and “suffocated by a fish”, The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth is a bewildering walk through medical history that will astonish readers. This book proves that truth is indeed stranger–and more stomach-churning–than fiction. Between the toasting forks projectiles and deadly dentures, there are lessons a-plenty on how not to die. * Lydia Kang, MD, author of Quackery *This delightfully bizarre compendium of medical mishaps will certainly tickle you–what’s not to love about exploding teeth?–but something deeper is at work. Morris offers a wryly generous view of the fallibilities of the body and psyche (read: the sailor who wouldn’t stop swallowing knives) and doctors’ inventive, often heroic attempts to remedy same, as medical science developed. At heart, this is an exploration of our humanity, in all its absurdity and valour. * Dawn Raffel, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Couney *The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth is such a weirdly wonderful tour through the history of medicine - from wandering bullets to apparently evil cucumbers - that on one level it’s just pure fun to read. But Thomas Morris’ intelligent story telling also makes it a fascinating look at medical history with all its mistakes, superstitions, and eventual understanding of the ever mysterious human body. * Deborah Blum, author of The Poison Squad *A wonderfully gruesome tour of inexplicable illnesses, questionable remedies, jaw-dropping operations and recoveries that defy logic… a fascinating window into the world of medical oddities… This tour of strange and unbelievable medical cases from history is funny and terrifying in equal measure. * Shelf Awareness *A particularly fascinating reminder of medical advancement… Morris has combed through old medical journals and compiled a trove of the most bizarre, disgusting — and compelling — cases from the early 17th to the turn of the 20th century. It’s like medical rubbernecking. * New York Post *

Thomas Morris is a writer and historian. His first book, The Matter of the Heart, a critically-acclaimed history of heart surgery, was published in 2017 and won an RSL Jerwood Award for non-fiction. His second, The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth, was chosen by Mental Floss as one of the best books of 2018. He was previously a BBC radio producer for 18 years, and his freelance journalism has appeared in publications including The Times, The Lancet and the TLS.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.