Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 082

Possibly up to 30 seconds in some cases.

While there is a paucity of Level II evidence, there are anecdotal reports of severed heads winking, blinking, rolling eyes and generally looking astonished. A Dr Beaurieux observed the decapitation of a convicted murder in 1905 and recounted that the severed head twice responded to its owner’s name by opening his eyes and fixing his gaze on the caller: it continued to respond for 25-30 seconds.

There is also an unconfirmed report of a guillotined head asking the executioner to cancel a forthcoming dental appointment.

• The boy’s name was Joseph Meister and the injury was a bite from a rabid dog.
• Meister’s mother had heard about Pasteur’s pioneering work on an anthrax vaccine and took the boy to see him 2 days later. Louis Pasteur inoculated him with a preparation from the dried spinal cord of a rabid rabbit.
• Joseph never developed rabies and is regarded as the first person to be saved by a rabies vaccine. He went on to become the gatekeeper at the Pasteur Institute, later committing suicide as the Nazis advanced on Paris.

Ergotism.

This is poisoning by ergot alkaloids, produced by a fungus that grows on rye (the name derives from the shape of the fungus: argot(Fr) = cock’s spur). In the Middle Ages it caused mysterious mass outbreaks of hallucinations, seizures, psychosis and dry gangrene.

At the time the condition was known as Le Feu de Saint Antoine (St Anthony’s fire) because a pilgrimage to St Anthony’s Abbey induced remission: the wholesome diet served at the Abbey’s hospital did not include any rye.

• Lee MR. The history of ergot of rye (Claviceps purpurea) I: from antiquity to 1900. J R Coll Physicians Edinb. 2009 Jun;39(2):179-84. PubMed PMID: 19847980. [fulltext pdf]

Literally, this means “gait with little steps”.

Although sometimes seen in Parkinsonism, it differs from the typical Parksinsonian gait in having an upright stance and normal arm swing. It is caused by diffuse cortical disease e.g. multiple lacunar infarcts or MS.

It shouldn’t be confused with “marche a petits pois” which is an ancient Breton method of manufacturing mushy peas.

Syphilis.

The disease is thought to have been introduced to Europe from the Americas, by returning crewmen from Christopher Columbus’s voyage. The first documented European outbreak was in Naples in 1494: unfortunately (for everybody) the French invaded just at that time and spread the disease around Europe, attracting the epithet “morbus gallicus” or French Disease.

Less justifiably, the French called it “la maladie Anglaise”.