CURIOSITIES OF MEDICINE

An Assembly of Medical Diversions"" is a very select selection of some of the more singular fascinating, frightening ills to which the flesh is heir from the annals of popular, clinical literature over the last 400 years. There's a 15th century account of the sweating sickness (influenza)- ""fever in the spirits caused by a venomous putre-faction""; or later plagues- cholera and typhoid; there's the langorous charm and febrile excitation of phtisis (consumption); the contemporary teen-age kick, jag-producing ""glue-sniffing""; Robert Lindner's extensive case study of Laura of the abnormal appetite; a Hungarian writer's shattering ""Journey Round My Skull""; and the editor (an eminent historian in this field) and his account of a world out of focus, the gravitational anarchy when rooms tilt and floors sag.... These accounts all fulfill the collector's criterion- a capacity to ""halt and hold, excite and delight"" predicated on discriminating standards of scientific scholarship and literary taste.