Beachy Head, England

The above are 18th-century medical artifacts from the Wellcome Collection in London. We have assorted syringes, glass eyes, amputation saws, a medicine chest ,Sir Hiram Maxim’s pipe of peace and phrenological heads.

Throughout his career, Cambridge physiologist Joseph Barcroft conducted self-experiments in which he pushed himself to the very edge of insanity and death. He referred to these as his borderland excursions. 

Some of Barcroft’s early excursions included volunteering to be exposed to hydrocyanic acid gas during World War I. A dog in the gas chamber with him died in ninety-five seconds, but Barcroft waited ten minutes before stumbling out with the dog in his arms.

A decade later Barcroft sealed himself inside an airtight glass chamber to test the effects of living in a low-oxygen environment. After six days in an atmosphere equivalent to that found at an altitude of 16000 feet, his entire body turned blue.

However, Barcroft’s most dramatic excursion occurred in 1931 when he decided to investigate the effects of freezing on mental functioning. He stripped naked and lay down on a table in a refrigerated chamber in the Woods Hole Research Center. At first he shivered and curled up to stay warm. 

He found it difficult to maintain the willpower to remain in the room. But he persevered, and after about an hour a strange mental change occurred. All sense of modesty disappeared. Suddenly he didn’t care if someone unrelated to the experiment might walk in and find him naked. The cold had turned him into a flagrant nudist.

But even more strangely, as he described to an audience at Yale University in 1936, “the sense of coldness passed away, and it was succeeded by a beautiful feeling of warmth; the word bask most fitly describes my condition: I was basking in the cold.” 

Barcroft was probably fast approaching a state of potentially lethal hypothermia. Thankfully a research assistant outside the chamber noticed something was amiss and rushed in with a blanket and warm drink to save him. (Source)

36-year-old Skeleton of Dead Baby Found Inside Indian Woman

Doctors in India have removed a baby’s skeleton from inside its mother, nearly four decades after the unborn infant died. Kantabai Thakre became pregnant in 1978, aged 24, but doctors warned the ectopic pregnancy had little chance of success.

Terrified of an operation, the young mother fled home and sought treatment for the pain in a small clinic near the village where she lived. After a few months the pain subsided and Mrs Thakre was convinced she had been cured.

However, last week the pains returned and Mrs Thakre, now 60, visited doctors in the central Indian city of Nagpur. Having found a lump on the lower right side of her abdomen, doctors at the NKP Salve Institute of Medical Sciences were concerned about cancer but an MRI scan revealed the hard mass was in fact the skeleton of her unborn child.

Doctors have now removed the skeleton. After searching medical records, the team of doctors believe this may be the longest ectopic pregnancy on record. (Source) 

High-Res

A three-eyed fish was caught in a reservoir in Argentina. The fishing hole where the mutant fish was caught may be more of a fission hole. The reservoir, named Chorro de Agua Caliente receives water from a nuclear plant in the province of Córdoba. (Source)

Keratoconus is a progressive eye condition causing the normally round, dome-shaped cornea to progressively thin and bulge resulting in a cone-like corneal appearance. The bulging caused by Keratoconus interferes with a person’s eyesight causing decreased vision or visual distortion and increased sensitivity to glare and light. (Source)

A conjoined piglet was born with conjoined heads, three eyes, two noses and two mouths.This happened in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi Province which located in eastern China. The piglet was among a litter of ten born lately, as the other piglets were healthy. According to the owner, the pig had difficulty suckling milk due to the way the mouth is placed. (Source)

Fox Found Frozen Alive in Norway River

Not far from highway E18 in Kragerø, Norway, a red fox was found frozen standing upright in a river, as if the water had suddenly turned to ice as it was crossing through.

Foxes have a high tolerance for cold and are well adapted to withstanding low temperatures, so, in principle, this little guy should have been able to cross the river without any major problems.

Furthermore, even if it had been injured or on the verge of death while wading through the river, it would have lied down in its final moments instead of standing upright.

While no one is certain what caused the fox to freeze in such a position, locals suggest that it could have been passing through thin ice and gotten stuck, or even been shot and then intentionally placed there as a cruel prank. (Source)