show episodes
 
We know where the bodies are hidden. An anatomy professor, an English professor, and a future med student talk about the history of the human body in medicine, anatomy, and culture. Topics discussed may include medical museums, anatomical grave-robbing, organ transplantation, disability studies, unusual bodies, prosthetics, implants, body modification...whatever catches our interest (and we are interested in some rather odd things).
  continue reading
 
Loading …
show series
 
In this episode, we join forces with Pitt’s Center for Bioethics & Health Law to present a special Medical Humanities Mondays panel discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic. Mari Webel of Pitt’s Department of History, Lisa S. Parker of the Center for Bioethics & Health Law, and our own Jake Dechant of Pitt’s School of Nursing address the problems of und…
  continue reading
 
In this special gonzo episode, Emma, Jake, and Jeff broadcast on improvised equipment from their respective pandemic shelters as the COVID-19 crisis expands faster than any one person can appreciate. We race escalating morbidity and Emma’s dwindling laptop battery as we tackle issues social and scientific, including the racist targeting of Asians i…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, we delve accurately if irreverently into the Covid-19 epidemic. It’s everything you’ve always wanted to know (and probably a few things you didn’t) about how viruses reproduce, or where they hide when they’re not causing us trouble. Along the way, we misidentify the inventor of PCR and riff on the exotic bathroom tissues of Japan a…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, Natalia Aleksiun, Professor of Modern Jewish History at Touro College, joins us in the studio to discuss her work on Jewish medical students in Central Europe between the world wars. In Poland and elsewhere, nationalist medical students under the rallying cry “Christian Bodies for Christians!” attempted to drive Jewish students out…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, your hosts turn their scalpels on the strange and ethically-murky world of human body exhibitions. We discuss Gunther von Hagens, the German anatomist who perfected techniques of plastination, a method of preservation that he later applied to whole human cadavers in his exhibition Bodyworlds. We look at von Hagen’s predecessors, li…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, we sniff into the strange territory of domestication and co-evolution with our special guest Anne Burrows, Professor of Anatomy at Duquesne University and a member of the research team making big news this summer for their work on the evolution of facial expression in domestic dogs. How does a muscle in a dog’s forehead tug on huma…
  continue reading
 
As vaccine fever runs high, UHC Brackenridge fellow Lo Reese joins Emma, Jake, and Jeff in the studio for a discussion about vaccines and the people who fear them, from the early days of smallpox vaccination to the present day of discredited anti-vaccine “experts” and “conspiracy cruises.” In an episode likely to lose us Jessica Biel and Jenny McCa…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, we dig deeply into the troubling history of obtaining human bodies for anatomical dissection and medical education. From disappearing parents to New York Riots to companies that offer body parts for rent, we can guarantee a fascinating though sometimes morbid excursion through medical history. You will meet a lot of people who were…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, Jake, Emma, and Jeff poke their instruments into the brave new world of commercial genetic testing. In a time when the swab of a cheek can reveal many things--some welcome, some not--we encounter crime, romantic disappointments, bogus diagnoses, and some very naughty doctors, with digressions into gangsta kiwis and the motherf***er…
  continue reading
 
Emma, Jake, and Jeff talk about people with unusual, non-normative, or prodigious bodies who took their gifts on the road, performing before delighted, titillated (and sometimes shocked) audiences. Historical figures discussed include Charles Sherwood Stratton a.k.a. "General Tom Thumb," The Hilton Sisters (conjoined twins), Myrtle Corbin "The Four…
  continue reading
 
Loading …

Quick Reference Guide