Rogue wounds

March 18, 2015 2:18 PM

In the asylums, the garrison hospitals, the rogues’ hovels, and so on back through time, it is possible to see medicine moving toward this moment, when the malingerer ceases to be a monster and becomes a mirror to ourselves.
posted by zeptoweasel (3 comments total)

In Vitré, his doctor-brother Jean, had met another caignardiere who glued a frog-skin to her breast to feign a tumor; a “big fat-bum’d wench of Normandy” claimed to have a snake in her belly; outside a church in Angres, a “base scoundrel” stuck a dead man’s arm in his sleeve and pretended it was his own.

Wow - this is fascinating stuff. Thanks for posting.
posted by misterbee at 5:05 PM on March 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also: Self-poisoning with mercury should be suspected if a soldier’s blood killed all his leeches.
!!
posted by zeptoweasel at 5:59 PM on March 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

the "hysteric" is a malingerer who is not lying, wow. It makes me think how deeply entangled morality is with cultural attitudes to even physical disease, much less mental. Seems like Foucault country.
posted by thelonius at 6:03 AM on March 19, 2015 [1 favorite]