Rare drawings of human anatomy from centuries past

A fascinating piece of curation from Brain Pickings. Ten centuries of anatomy drawings covering everything from Civil War wounds to anti-tuberculosis flyers from China. For the past 175 years, the The National Library of Medicine in Bethesda has been building the world’s largest collection of biomedical images, artifacts, and ephemera. With more than 17 million items spanning …

Vampire bones dug up in Bulgaria

Bulgarian archaeologists are showing off two centuries-old skeletons that they say were pinned down through their chests with iron rods to keep them from turning into vampires — a trend that was all the rage in medieval Europe. The “vampire” skeletons were excavated recently near the Black Sea town of Sozopol, according to reports from The …

Epic Photo: the anatomy of the Incredible Hulk

click for full size image (and then zoom to read text)   I drew this fan art of Marvel Comics’ Incredible Hulk, dissected and analyzed. Here it is with a new lick of paint. At the time, I tried to draw on not only my mother’s nursing school anatomy textbooks, but also gorilla and hominid …

Family History Day: a new American holiday

Would you like to celebrate a new holiday with me? I call it Family History Day, or Ancestors Day.  Let’s celebrate it right before Halloween with a variety of fun and somber rituals, pulled from the most popular festivals around the world: Qingming festival from East Asia Día de los Muertos from Mexico The rituals of Shinto …