Category Archives: Tall tales

1915: Austrians invent electric underwear for trench warfare

In late 1915, newspapers in Europe and the United States reported that freezing German and Austrian soldiers on the Western Front could soon benefit from a thrilling new invention: electric underwear.

Developed by Max Beck at the University of Innsbruck and Professor Herman von Schroter of Vienna, the underwear were made of non-conductive fabric interwoven with thin wires, in a similar fashion to modern electric blankets. Each pair contained a safety fuse to prevent overloading and electrocution. They cost approximately eight pounds Sterling or $US20 to manufacture. According to American reports:

“For each series of trenches it is necessary to install an electric plant, from which conducting wires are carried. When a soldier feels cold, all he has to do is connect up his underwear with the current wires… As now perfected it will be possible for soldiers to warm themselves with this electrical clothing [up to] 1,500 feet away.”

Source: The Sunday Times (London), November 21st 1915; Keowee Courier, December 29th 1915. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1890: Hungarian woman prematurely buried, gives birth

In 1890, several European and American newspapers ran an amazing story about the premature burial of a pregnant woman. The story emanated from Pester Lloyd, a German-language newspaper in the Austro-Hungarian empire. It told of events near Szegedin, approximately 100 kilometres south of Budapest.

According to the London Standard‘s retelling:

“A married woman named Gonda, belonging to a village near Szegedin, was reported to have died while under the hands of the midwife. The doctor granted a certificate of death and the woman was interred. Her husband, however, doubting whether she had really died, caused the body to be exhumed. On opening the coffin the woman was found lying on her side, with a newborn child dead beside her. An investigation into the case has been instituted.”

It may be that this was a case of ‘coffin birth’: the post-mortem expulsion of a foetus during decomposition. Wikipedia, of course, has a page on this phenomenon.

Source: Pester Lloyd, Budapest, September 12th 1890; The Standard, London, September 20th 1890. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1730: Somerset pig-gelder tries neutering wife

In August 1730, a London newspaper report claimed a Somerset man was under arrest for cruelty to his wife. The article did not name the man but identified him as the local pig-gelder in Bridgwater in the county’s north.

According to the report, the accused man was:

“..in the company of several other married men [and] over a pot of ale they all joined in complaint of the fruitfulness of their wives… [and asked the gelder] whether he could not do by their wives as by other animals; he said he could and they all agreed their good women should undergo the operation.”

The man returned home, probably drunk, and proceeded to gag and bind his wife. He laid her on their table and made an incision in her belly but became reluctant to proceed after finding:

“..there was some difference between the situation of the parts in the rational and irrational animals… he [sewed] up the wound and was forced to give up the experiment.”

Source: London Journal, August 22nd 1730. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1683: Dutch wife delivers black children, thanks to statue

Stephanus Blankaart (1650-1704) was a Dutch physician, medical researcher and author. One of his interests was unusual physical deformities, particularly those found in newborn children. Blankaart’s research in this field caught the attention of Russian emperor Peter the Great, who later assembled his own collection of deformed foetuses and body parts.

In a 1683 text, Blankaart recorded several cases of physical deformity he had encountered, including a ten-year-old boy covered in fish scales and another child with an ear growing in the middle of the forehead.

He also recalled that a married woman in Amsterdam had given birth to two children who were:

“..otherwise healthy, but with the colours and features of a Moor [North African].”

According to Blankaart the woman was treated by Nicolaas Tulp, another well known physician. After some investigation Tulp offered an explanation for the woman’s coloured children: she kept a large statue of a naked Moor in her house and had often “gazed upon it”.

Source: Stephanus Blankaart, Collectanea Medico-Physica, 1683. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1813: Virginians report shape-shifting UFO

In July 1813 two men, Portsmouth innkeeper Edward Hansford and John Clarke of Baltimore, wrote to Thomas Jefferson. Hansford and Clarke sought the former US president’s opinion about an unexplained phenomenon they claimed to have witnessed:

“…On the night of the 25th instant, we saw in the south a ball of fire full as large as the sun at Maridian which was frequently obscured within the space of ten minutes by a smoke emitted from its own body, but ultimately retained its briliancy…”

And if that wasn’t unusual enough:

“It then assumed the form of a turtle, which also appeared to be much agitated… It descended obliquely to the West, and raised again perpendicular to its original height… It then assumed the shape of a human skeleton which was frequently obscured by a like smoke… it then assumed the form of a Scotch Highlander, arrayed for battle and extremely agitated, and ultimately passed to the West and disappeared in its own smoke.”

Jefferson did not reply to their letter.

Source: Letter from Messers Hansford and Clarke to Thomas Jefferson, July 31st 1813. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1612: Umbilical cord length determines other appendages

Jacques Guillemeau was a French surgeon who specialised in obstetrics, a prolific writer and a physician to the Bourbon monarchy. Writing in 1612 Guillemeau says the amount of umbilical cord left untrimmed after birth will determine the size of a man’s tongue and penis:

“…the navel must be tied longer or shorter, according to the difference of the sex, allowing more measure to the males… because this length doth make their tongue and privy members the longer, whereby they may both speak the plainer and be more serviceable to ladies… the gossips commonly say merrily to the midwife; if it be a boy, make him good measure… but if it be a wench, tie it short.”

Source: Jacques Guillemeau, Child-Birth or the Happy Delivery of Women, trans. 1612. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1807: Preacher drowns baptism candidate; others not so keen

In the early 1800s, travelogue writer Charles W. Janson told of winter baptisms in New England where the preacher “ducked” baptismal candidates in half-frozen rivers. Janson described his first experience of these chilly baptisms:

“During this unnatural ceremony, I was no less entertained with the remarks of the spectators. One of them observed that severe as the discipline was, they seldom took cold or suffered subsequent bodily pains, adding that their enthusiasm was so great, and their minds were wrought up to such a degree of religious frenzy, that no room was left for reflection or sense of danger.”

Janson then reported one baptism in Connecticut that ended in tragedy:

“It was performed in a small but rapid river covered with ice, except a place cut for the purpose. The minister, with his followers, advanced to the proper distance into the water. After the usual introductory prayer, being in the act of immersing the first, he [the preacher] accidentally lost his hold of the unfortunate person, who was in an instant carried down the stream, still running under the ice, and irrecoverably lost.”

The preacher, apparently unflustered by this disastrous turn of events, pressed on:

“The good man finding his subject gone, with a happy serenity of mind exclaimed: “The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Come another of you, my children.” The remainder, astonished and confounded, lost their faith, and fled.”

Source: Charles William Janson, The Stranger in America, 1807. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1774: Boston Tea Party spoils the taste of fish

In May 1774, a Virginian newspaper suggested the quality of fish caught in Massachusetts waters had deteriorated, possibly because of the Boston Tea Party five months earlier:

“Letters from Boston complain much of the taste of their fish being altered. Four or five hundred chests of tea may have so contaminated the water in the Harbour that the fish may have contracted a disorder, not unlike the nervous complaints of the human Body. Should this complaint extend itself as far as the banks of Newfoundland, our Spanish and Portugal fish trade may be much affected by it.”

Source: The Virginia Gazette, May 5th 1774. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1831: Wedding night claims wife, 105, and husband, 98

In May 1831, a New York newspaper reported the marriage of Mrs Frances Tompkins, aged 105, and Mr Moses Alexander, aged 98. According to the report they were married in Bath in Steuben County, New York state, on April 11th. The wedding was conducted by the Reverend Doctor Smith. And afterwards?

“They were taken out of bed dead the following morning.”

Source: The Brockport Free Press, New York, May 18th 1831. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1686: Unnatural sex position leads to unnatural birth

Cornelis Stalpart van der Wiel (1620–1702) was an esteemed Dutch surgeon. He had a busy practice in The Hague that received well to do patients from all over the Low Countries. Stalpart was also a prolific writer, recording new illness, injuries and physical anomalies. His brother was also a physician.

Writing in 1686, Slapart describes the curious case of Elisabeth Tomboy, one of his brother’s patients. Tomboy was a Dutch housewife who in January 1678 gave birth to a normal and quite healthy baby daughter. However on September 27th 1677, 14 weeks beforehand, Tomboy had gone into premature labour. Attended by Dr Stalpart Jnr and a midwife, Mrs Tomboy gave birth to a stillborn puppy:

“..being a bitch, about a finger long and having all its limbs.”

Bestiality was the usual explanation for deformed births of this kind, however Stalpart, drawing on the investigations of his brother, offered an alternative explanation. He penned this part in Latin, to keep it from “common readers” and to spare Mrs Tomboy further embarrassment:

“Her husband was a coarse, crude drunk, shameless and utterly inhuman… from time to time he took her from behind, threatening her with clubs and iron pipe so that she would have to comply…”

Elisabeth Tomboy, Stalpart said, became so convinced that she would conceive a dog that she did. This story was repeated (though never corroborated) by other early modern medical writers, as evidence of maternal impression.

Source: C. Stalpart van der Wiel, Hondert zeldzame aanmerhngen, zoo in de genees-als heelkunst, 1686. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.