Nigel Cawthorne

This pretty much delivered what I expected—a light, entertaining, fast read, a lot of historical medical trivia, a few jokes, a fun read if you like the darker, weirder, grosser parts of the past. There are lots of bite-sized chunks of info loosely grouped around topic like “internal medicine” and “quack doctors”, with scattered illustrations drawn from medical texts (mostly of medical instruments and doctors at work). He brings up stuff like alchemy and sympathetic healing, shows show more somewhat the progression of things like medical licensing, even brings up some noteworthy figures (if you’re into this stuff) like Robert Liston and Mary Toft.

However, if you’re looking for a book aimed at serious history people or academics, this isn’t it. Cawthorne might have done a lot of research to come up with all the medieval and early modern texts, and all the folk healing and medical pamphlets, and everything else that he’s drawing from—but in most cases, he doesn’t cite his sources. Did he get that fact from a newspaper? An old book? Someone else’s modern academic collection of medical history? Where would I read that ad, if I wanted to look for it?

In a similar vein, he often bounces around in history, putting a medieval cure after one from the 1600s and following it with something that’s probably from the 1700s but he doesn’t say. And I would have appreciated having more explanations of whether a given cure might have worked, what active ingredients there were, that sort of thing. More context, basically, not just lists of ingredients or advertisement. I like knowing why.

But like I said, I didn’t really go in expecting that, it would’ve just been icing on the cake. There’s a lot of information, told understandably, and Cawthorne’s method of mainly quoting text and relating incidents helps to convey patterns in a way that simply explaining them wouldn’t—common ingredients, common types of treatments, even the way people wrote addresses before maps and mass literacy. He’s made the history engaging too, or at least brought it to life somewhat as a “weird medicine highlights reel”—and it’s certainly made me relieved to be living now, when I don’t have to worry about dying from arsenic pills.

It was enjoyable, I learned a bit, I didn’t get all the jokes on account of not being British, and I think there might even be some facts that I can put into use in fiction at some point. Would recommend, even though it wasn’t quite as good as it could have been.

To bear in mind: May contain medical treatments and ailments not suitable for all viewers (but not that many).

6.8/10 show less

Most American people, especially the young, now seem to think of classical composers as somehow stodgy and boring—or super-human—not knowing of course that Franz Liszt was kind of the Mick Jagger of his generation, or that Franz Schubert died of syphilis; or really anything about Clara Schumann (who also makes an appearance in this book, although poor Fanny Mendelssohn, at least equally talented, does not). This is a spicy little book that's nice to read in chunks because it has shortish show more chapters, each devoted to a well-known composer of the European classical through romantic periods. You may never listen to some of them in quite the same way again.

I don't recommend this book be placed on the coffee table in your drawing room for casual perusal by your piano pupils while waiting for their lessons to begin.

If this were a true confession instead of a supposed "review", I would admit that much of this book was read to me during a long automobile road trip with a special friend. And then parts of it I read to her in return, when neither of us were driving. It thus merits a special place on my shelf, currently residing between The Twelve Dancing Princesses and The Elizabethan Underworld. show less

How do some people know all the stuff they know!! This is a fascinating story. Alan Turing was an amazing man yet sadly it seems he was mistrusted because of personality traits which today would have, possibly, been diagnosed as Asperger's syndrome. In addition, he was treated atrociously by friends and doctors when it became known he was homosexual. It's thanks to him and the fact that he lived at a time in history when a new technology was being born, that Britain was able to win the war. show more Churchill even said that if it hadn't been for Alan Turing Germany would have been victorious! I felt some sadness and guilt that this brilliant, quiet achiever has not had the general recognition most heroes of this war have gained. Alan Turing was a living breathing human computer in the way he saw codes and numbers and more people need to read his story and discover his genius. show less

If this book were evidence, I, as a juror, would vote to acquit based on reasonable doubt. Monaghan and Cawthorne fail to make much of a connection (maybe no connection) between Walter’s secret diary and the gruesome Jack the Ripper murders. For example, Walter often gave his girls handkerchiefs; Handkerchiefs were found on the victims. As a hunter Walter owned a sharp knife and had a basic understanding of anatomy; the victims were mutilated by someone with a basic understanding of show more anatomy. The sight of blood aroused Walter; the crime scenes were bloody. The authors spend chapters and chapters emphasizing Walter’s unquenchable desire to deflower virgins. The Ripper’s victims were exclusively middle aged prostitutes.

Perhaps, somewhere in the eleven volume tome, more compelling evidence exists. The excerpts the authors chose to publish contain some of the most shocking and heinous sexual content many readers will ever encounter. Walter’s diary ranges in style from “letters to Penthouse” to detailed descriptions of criminal sexual deviance. That Walter is depraved is not in doubt; that Walter is Jack the Ripper is.

One thing the book does manage to convey is the shame of a social structure that allows such horrid crimes to occur. That so many are complicit in Walter’s licentiousness is hard to believe. That authorities ignore the plight of sexually enslaved women is disgraceful.

I love a good true crime where an author reveals the criminal through a series of facts tied together with a touch of innuendo and a few inferences. Unfortunately, in this book the innuendo is nothing more than lurid exposition and inferences giant leaps of faith.

Monaghan and Cawthorne fall far short of convincing me Walter is Jack the Ripper. For me, Jack the Ripper's Secret Confession was nothing more than a dirty book. show less