The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth

And Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine

By: Thomas Morris

Narrated by: Thomas Morris, Ruper Farley

"Delightfully horrifying." (Popular Science)

One of Mental Floss' Best Books of 2018

One of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2018

This wryly humorous collection of stories about bizarre medical treatments and cases offers a unique portrait of a bygone era in all its jaw-dropping weirdness.

A puzzling series of dental explosions beginning in the 19th century is just one of many strange tales that have long lain undiscovered in the pages of old medical journals. Award-winning medical historian Thomas Morris delivers one of the most remarkable, cringe-inducing collections of stories ever assembled.

Witness mysterious illnesses (such as the Rhode Island woman who peed through her nose), horrifying operations (1781: A French soldier in India operates on his own bladder stone), tall tales (like the "amphibious infant" of Chicago, a baby that could apparently swim underwater for half an hour), unfortunate predicaments (such as that of the boy who honked like a goose after inhaling a bird's larynx), and a plethora of other marvels.

Beyond a series of anecdotes, these painfully amusing stories reveal a great deal about the evolution of modern medicine. Some show the medical profession hopeless in the face of ailments that today would be quickly banished by modern drugs; but others are heartening tales of recovery against the odds, patients saved from death by the devotion or ingenuity of a conscientious doctor.

However embarrassing the ailment or ludicrous the treatment, every case in The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth tells us something about the knowledge (and ignorance) of an earlier age, along with the sheer resilience of human life.

©2018 Thomas Morris (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"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)

“In The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine, Thomas Morris takes a delightful romp through a myriad of entertaining, arcane and obscure medical anecdotes plucked from 18th- and 19th-century newspapers, journals and textbooks.... Using a panoply of colorful examples, the author artfully illustrates the frustrations, uncertainty, poorly founded confidence and frequent futility of medical practice in the prescientific age.” (Wall Street Journal)

"The vast amount of material from diverse sources will amuse readers and leave them shaking their heads...[an] informative, fascinating look at the history of medicine." (Library Journal)

One of my favorite medicine-based books

I love the odd medical stories and this one has lots of them. It's very fascinating. I do a re-listen every once and a while just to enjoy it again. If medical oddities are your thing, you're going to enjoy it, too. It's not a technical read, just some odd stories gathered up from old medical journals and presented in a very interesting manner. They are often fascinating, horrifying, awesome and stunning by turn. You'll appreciate modern medicine a lot better after hearing some of these tales.

I found the two-person narration very well done, too. I really did thoroughly enjoy this book.

Delightfully absurd

It takes a special kind of twisted person to enjoy the macabre of medicine of yore. Likely, those in the medical field will enjoy this while everyone else in society will back away slowly. A+!

A light, humorous account of the foibles of early

The relatively short chapters made this easy to listen to, especially while exercising, doing brief tasks or before bed (I have the unfortunate habit of dozing off while in the horizontal position while listening).
The performance was good and with clear enunciation.
Overall, I enjoyed the multitude of medical anecdotes.

interesting stories, mediocre narrator

Interesting stories made worse by the author inserting jokes and offhand comments in the middle of the narrative.

Very Entertaining but Cringeworthy at Times

This is a wild and fascinating glimpse at crazy medical occurrences in the past. Be prepared to feel quite pained at times as you hear what people went through and the treatment they endured!

Oddities in Medicine and Health

Well written, and engaging. I found this book to be exactly as advertised, although perhaps I would have liked a little more humor and bit less of some of the more serious issues. But otherwise a good choice of listen for most people. Not as grotesque as I thought it might be either, although there are some cases that were definitely quite disturbing in nature.

Very entertaining!

Fascinating and humorous! The reader regales us with tales of truly bizarre medical conditions and events.

Interesting but like a textbook

Interesting content but you can tell that these are from medical journals. Good for in the car if you're are not able to give 100% attention.

Highly Entertaining

This book is a fascinating and often hilarious jaunt through historical medical cases and practices! I found the author's commentary approachable as well as quite witty. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the unusual side of medical history but prepare for some squeamish descriptions!

A Fun and Disgusting Romp

The strange tales of medical curiosities is really entertaining.

Sometimes Morris brings the book around to larger truths about medical history and connects it to current scholarship, but that doesn't feel like the point. Instead, you get the feeling of a Victorian walking into a cabinet of curiosities off the street. You'll be fascinated and (to paraphrase a review in Popular Science) delightfully horrified.