# The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine - Hardcover

by **Justin McElroy** (Author), **Sydnee McElroy** (Author), **Teylor Smirl** (Illustrator)

****A compelling, often hilarious and occasionally horrifying exploration of how modern medicine came to be!****

Wondering whether eating powdered mummies might be just the thing to cure your ills? Tempted by those vintage ads suggesting you wear radioactive underpants for virility? Ever considered drilling a hole in your head to deal with those pesky headaches? Probably not. But for thousands of years, people have done things like this--and things that make radioactive underpants seem downright sensible! In their hit podcast, Sawbones, Sydnee and Justin McElroy breakdown the weird and wonderful way we got to modern healthcare. And some of the terrifying detours along the way.

Every week, Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin amaze, amuse, and gross out (depending on the week) hundreds of thousands of avid listeners to their podcast, _Sawbones_. Consistently rated a top podcast on iTunes, with over 15 million total downloads, this rollicking journey through thousands of years of medical mishaps and miracles is not only hilarious but downright educational. While you may never even consider applying boiled weasel to your forehead (once the height of sophistication when it came to headache cures), you will almost certainly face some questionable medical advice in your everyday life (we're looking at you, raw water!) and be better able to figure out if this is a miracle cure (it's not) or a scam.

Table of Contents:

_Part 1: The Unnerving_  
The Resurrection Men  
Opium  
An Electrifying Experience  
Weight Loss  
Charcoal  
The Black Plague  
Pliny the Elder  
Erectile Dysfunction  
Spontaneous Combustion  
The Doctor Is In  
Trepanation

_Part II: The Gross_  
Mummy Medicine  
Mercury  
The Guthole Bromance  
A Piece of Your Mind  
The Unkillable Phineas Gage  
Phrenology  
The Man Who Drank Poop  
Robert Liston  
Urine Luck!  
Radium  
Humorism  
The Doctor Is In  
The Straight Poop

_Part III: The Weird_  
The Dancing Plague  
Curtis Howe Springer  
Smoke 'Em if You Got ëEm  
A Titanic Case of Nausea  
Arsenic  
Paracelsus  
Honey  
Self-Experimentation  
Homeopathy  
The Doctor Is In

_Part IV: The Awesome_  
The Poison Squad  
Bloodletting  
Death by Chocolate  
John Harvey Kellogg  
Parrot Fever  
Detox  
Vinegar  
Polio Vaccine  
The Doctor Is In

### Author Biography

Justin McElroy is a 15-year journalism veteran with two awards from the Ohio Associated Press for business writing. He has served as the managing editor of AOL's Joystiq and Vox Media's Polygon (of which he's also a founder).

Teylor Smirl is a graduate of New York's School of the Visual Arts; their work has been featured in comics such as _Amazing Forest_ as well as their own series, _Flightless Birds_. As Sydnee's sibling, they are part of the ever-growing McElroy (and family) podcasting empire, co-hosting _Neat! The Boozecast_ and _Still Buffering_ with Sydnee and their youngest sister, Rileigh.

**Number of Pages:** 216

**Dimensions:** 1.1 x 8.5 x 6.9 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** October 09, 2018

## Details

- **Price:** 24.99 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 24.99 USD | In stock |

## Images

- The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine - Hardcover
- The Sawbones Book: The Hilarious, Horrifying Road to Modern Medicine - Hardcover

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