The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide To Eccentric & Discredited Diseases

by Unknown

  Dr. Neil Gaiman wrote upon medical matters between 1850 and 1871. The events of 1872 are too widely known to deserve comment. Suffice it to say Dr. Gaiman’s exoneration, the dismissal of all charges, and the ritual burning of the wig were considered by most commentators to be the end of the matter. Dr. Gaiman’s terrible death in 1873 was considered by other commentators to be the complete and utter end of the matter. His most famous books were published posthumously. Rumors that they were written posthumously cannot be taken seriously. He is no longer in general practice.

  Dr. Sara Gwenllian Jones specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of disputed existence. Her 1996 confirmation of the rare Aztec Facial Rictus Syndrome led to her being awarded the Mycroft Prize for Medical Detection. In 2001, she was reported missing, presumed mad, after the distinctive silver VW camper housing her mobile laboratory was found abandoned by the roadside near Cuzco, Peru.

  Dr. Rhys H. Hughes earned his medical degree from a fake “traveling” university that rolled along the lonely roads of rural Wales on the back of a steam-powered wagon. He eventually graduated with honors in Pure & Applied Quackery. During lectures, he frequently played crude and somber airs on a miniature harp. After the completion of his studies, he disembarked from the university in a place unknown to him. Here he settled and specialized in vermicide preparation. In time, he became a local celebrity and the author of many ponderous tomes on the eradication of parasitical worms. His vermicide classic Worming the Harpy was promoted by including a free jar of worms with every copy sold. It rapidly became an official International Sickclub worstseller.

  Dr. Shelley Jackson considers it a matter of professional pride to undergo every disease she treats. Consequently, she is a hive of viruses, but her chest is draped with medals, and among her boils glistens that famous emerald, the gift of a grateful patient. That her papers (collected in The Melancholy of Anatomy) appear in high-subscription glossies rather than medical journals is no reason to raise the cry of “Quack!” Dr. Jackson has introduced many new diseases to science. The charge that some of these were concocted in a privately-funded genetic-engineering laboratory at her home somewhere in South America is libelous.

  Dr. Harvey Jacobs was found floating as a tyke on a matzoh in the Nile River and adapted by an illustrious family of cuppers and bleeders who shared their arcane medical knowledge derived from herbs, flowers, trees, astrology, random dissections, and Depak Choptera’s Collected Bromides. His first published work, Get It Right the First Time, the definitive reference used to codify the size of tumors (i.e., the size of a cantaloupe, or a grape, etc.), was short-listed for the pestigious Toulouse Lautrec Award. His most recent monograph, My Rose and My Glove, is a biographical account of his years as a practicing physician and spokesperson for the rights of unborn monarchs.

  Dr. Frederick John Kleffel’s interest in World War II surgical automata arose from the casual discovery of a rusting Intubatron© at a swap meet in Azusa, California. His first entries in the annals of research on emerging diseases were published in obscure journals such as Grue and Deathrealm. His accusers have pointed to the very names of these periodicals as indicative of the nature of his abilities, but all of the charges levied were deemed to be erroneous and unsustainable. He currently holds the Guignol Chair in the College of Automated Inter-Species Surgery for the University of California at Irvine.

  Dr. Jay Lake, F.M.C.S. (Fellow, Mongolian College of Shamans), was discovered as an infant living inside a record-setting yak bezoar. He capitalized on his hirsutitudinous origins to attend medical school in Bulgaria, followed by a court-supervised residency at a sexually transmitted disease clinic in West Orange, New Jersey. He has since successfully pursued a career as a spleen wrangler. Dr. Lake’s trenchant medical analyses appear in such inappropriate markets as Album Zutique, Leviathan 4, and Realms of Fantasy. Rumors about his involvement in the Iroquois Theater fire should be disregarded.

  Dr. David Langford had the good fortune to commit his researches at a period when relevant legislation had yet to be urgently passed. An aficionado of mania, delusion, and fugue, he became a contributing editor to The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), ed. Dr. John Clute and Dr. John Grant. His earlier work on problems of incontinence appeared in 1984 as The Leaky Establishment. Langford is perhaps most envied in pathology circles for his lovingly formalin-preserved collection of hypertrophied urino-genital organs, or HUGOs. The denizens of Reading in the English county of Royal Berkshire prefer not to discuss his residence there.

  Dr. Tim Lebbon was once a general practitioner of great repute. However, since his very public, and very messy, debarring for dabbling in the nefarious science of Total Body Transplant, his area of expertise has expanded to include genetic engineering. His stated aim is to eventually “humanize” all animate items listed in his manifesto Pending Sentience: The Need For Global Incorporation and Intellectualization. His assistant, Dr. Hydrangea, refused to respond to our request for interview.

  Dr. Gabriel Mesa commutes daily between his law firm and his medical practice, which at times become confused with his third profession as a translator of little-known Latin American rural poets. Although confined to a coffin for health reasons since the age of five, Dr. Mesa maintains an active anti-exercise schedule, in keeping with Dr. Michael Cisco’s anti-disease manifesto. His staff of 12 typewriter-wielding monkeys often assists in his translations.

  Dr. China Miéville is better known for his work on the history and theory of medicine than for his clinical practice, though he has always claimed his remarks describing patients as “corporeal filth” were taken out of context. His most recent works are those investigating rodents as vectors of grandeur, treatment for attacks by railway-dwelling carnivorous lepidoptera, and the psycho-social effects of pervasive scarification.

  Rev. Michael Moorcock (pronounced “Muck”) comes from a long line of physicians and has long suffered from multiverse chronoshock. His ancestor Dr. Blood served as a British privateer, having been sentenced to transportation by Judge Jeffreys, while a later American ancestor Dr. Mudd paid a high price treating the heroic Avenger of the South, J.W. Boothe, when he was wounded by Yankee terrorists. Dr. “Muck’s” Irish ancestor Dr. Sean O’Dure became famous in the Crimea as Quick Saw O’Dure. “Muck’s” great grandmother, Dr. Harriet Gutz, was one of the first woman doctors in the trenches during the 1914–18 war and his maternal grandfather, Dr. Roberto Filuth, rode with the 1st Cuban Volunteers and was responsible for treating a shrapnel wound sustained by Che Guevara. More recently, his uncle Dr. John Pease achieved a certain fame by founding Docteurs Sans Medicins and its attendant group Docteurs Sans Anasthesia, which operated for a while in Cambodia with the heroic Red Khmer Army. The names of Blood, Mudd, O’Dure, Gutz, Filuth, and Pease, together with that of Moorcock, have become synonymous with unorthodox emergency surgical procedures, usually in times of war.

  Dr. Alan Moore is widely-known for numerous dissertations recounting, variously, cases of human/vegetable mutation in the southern United States, the sexual neuroses of vigilantes and costumed psychopaths, notable outbreaks of gigantism, vampirism, and invisibility in Victorian England and a major study of Ballistic Organ Syndrome in London prostitutes. His current scrutiny of the Twilight Ailments takes place at the Seaview Oneiric Research Facility, Northampton, England.

  Dr. Martin Newell, born in 1953, came to medicine relatively late, when a promising career as a stunt flier was cut short by injury. After qualifying in his mid-thirties, he became interested in the correlation between mental illness and creativity. He is now chief consultant at The Elmstead Institute of Artistic and Psychosomatic Disorders in Essex. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Cuppers and Horse Bleeders, he is married with two imaginary children. He has been Mental Illness Poetry Interface correspondent for The Independent newspaper for the past 12 years. He takes a keen interest.

  Dr. Mike O’Driscoll sat the matriculation exam for entrance to the Ingolstadt Centre for Psychic Rehabi
litation, gaining an E+. Inspired by this near success, he stole a copy of the Hypocritic oath and obtained a license to practice medicine through marriage to Dr. Imelda Trellis, physician to the town of Skibbereen and environs. Following his wife’s disappearance in 1972, Dr. O’Driscoll was misdiagnosed as clinically incompetent and subsequently debarred. He expects to be practicing again very soon, following Dr. R.M. Berry’s fortuitous diagnosis of Wife Blindness as being the real cause for his laughable bedside manner.

  Dr. Lance Olsen resigned his professorship in temporal awareness at the University of Idaho in 2001 to pursue research into the diseases of time in his mountain compound. The result a year later was Girl Imagined by Chance (FC2), an investigation into the immunodeficiency syndrome often referred to in the colloquial as Sadness Before the Realization of Minutes, and, in 2003, Hideous Beauties (Eraserhead UP), a history of how carnival freaks have perceived time’s passing as a series of colors and fragrances continuously misplaced.

  Dr. Rachel Pollack, M.D. O.B.E., a former forensic chemist, studied anatomy with Jeffrey Dahmer before receiving her medical degree in a dream. She has served as medical advisor to several extinct goddesses, and has pioneered techniques for surgical extraction of religion under emergency held conditions. In 1989, she joined with a coterie of dead colleagues to form the group Doctors Without Boundaries. In 1997, she received the Nobel Shadow Prize for her work on hidden messages in dietary obsessions.

  Dr. Steve Redwood will surely be remembered as much for his simple humanity as for his contributions to the advancement of knowledge. Of his dedication to his chosen speciality, there are countless examples, as when television cameras caught him picking his nose, and examining the contents, while Guest of Honour at a WHO reception. His humanity was revealed when his wife gave birth to an extremely ugly child: the rigorous scientist gave way to the fond father and sensitive husband, and his headless body was launched into space last month. As proof of his lasting influence, no eulogies were delivered at this event.

  Dr. Mark Roberts has always had a high tolerance for blather and needling, as evidenced by his continuing editorial relationship with Dr. Jeff VanderMeer. In addition to his experience as a veterinarian, Dr. Roberts is Creative Director of the Chimeric Mission of Creative Therapy. Thousands of people from all walks of life are suffering periods of intense depression, caused by an almost complete lack of visual and cerebral stimulation. The Chimeric Mission recognizes this, and through strategic partnerships with handpicked organizations and individuals, promotes and encourages the spread of Fusion-33, an artificial virus with multi-dimensional qualities that induces the desire to “create” in its victims.

  Dr. Iain Rowan is one of the world’s leading authorities on any medical issues that require expensive consultancy. His medical work appears mostly in journal publications by plagiarizing quacks who happen not to have offended the editorial boards by making public criticisms that their expertise is largely in the personal acquisition of various forms of dubious infections. His monographs have appeared in a number of publications, such as, Nemonymous, the international journal for study of Identity Loss Syndrome, although they are often disguised as fiction to prevent the grand medical conspiracy from stifling his words.

  Dr. G. Eric Schaller is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of New Hampshire. He has published research from his laboratory in numerous scientific journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Plant Physiology, and the Journal of Irreproducible Results. He first became aware of the devastating effects of the Wuhan Flu from his Chinese graduate students, who all knew about the Xiaping disaster even though it had not been reported in the Western press. His pet hedgehog is named Siggitz (spelling uncertain).

  Dr. and Dr. Jack Slay, Jr. is a full professor at LaGrange College in Georgia and a half professor at the Miskatonic Technical Institute just up the road. He received his Ph.D. in Diseased Literature from the University of Tennessee in 1991; that same year the University of Texas awarded him an M.D. in Literary Diseases. His book, (Parentheses as M(al)aise and (L)anguor in Contemporary (Shi)vais(t) Literature), will be published as soon as the suits and countersuits are settled. Currently, Dr. Slay is hurriedly at work on a treatise on mange.

  Dr. B. M. Stableford, B.A., D.Phil., F.R.S.B.F., suffered a nervous breakdown in 1972 following an experiment in population dynamics that required him to count 16 populations of flour beetles every 72 hours for three years; he subsequently took up medical research on the advice of his doctor, an existentialist who told him that his only hope lay in developing some iron in the soul.

  Dr. Steve Rasnic Tem has quickly become one of the foremost doctors of experimental behavior in the United States. Although arrested many times during the course of his studies, his explorations of voluntary facial tics, non-goal oriented speech, and hysterical perambulation have made him an object of minimal interest at two or three college campuses. Tem received his medical training from his parents as part of an intensive home-schooling program.

  Dr. Jeffrey Thomas has served as Chief of Surgery (1962–81) and Chancellor for Research (1982–90) at Eastborough Hospital, Eastborough, Massachusetts. He now considers his books Punktown, Monstrocity, and Letters from Hades, to be interesting studies of delusion, though at the time he wrote them, he was convinced they were observations of actual events. During that time (2000–02), Dr. Thomas was engaged in self-trepanation experiments.

  Until recently, Dr. Jeff Topham served as chief pathologist for the Center for Sanguinary Studies in Louisville. Dr. Topham left the center last year under a cloud of scandal, although none of the allegations against him were ever proved. In any event, a thorough search of his residence failed to turn up any of the missing pieces.

  Dr. Jeff VanderMeer was born a cantankerous old man and is only getting older. In addition to his skills as a veterinarian and chiropractor, Dr. VanderMeer runs the Ministry of Whimsy Clinic for Esoteric Writers, which attempts to rehabilitate the work of writers who have never really been accepted into the mainstream. As a result of his efforts, the Ministry Clinic has been a finalist for the World Medical Fantasy Award, the British Medical Fantasy Award, and the Psycho-tropic Kinetic Drugs Award. Dr. VanderMeer himself won the 2000 World Medical Fantasy Award for his paper “The Transformation of Martin Lake: An Analysis of Certain Psycho-Physical Aspects of the Imagination That Lead to Artistic Success.”

  Dr. Liz Williams was Consulting Physician at the Royal Entomological College, Brighthelm, from 1903–21, where she pioneered attempts to communicate with bees. Accounts of Hsing’s Sarcoma and other pestilential outbreaks can be found among those of her papers that have not been chewed (cause unknown). In 1925, Dr. Williams undertook an expedition to Mongolia to investigate episodes of giantism in insects, but was kidnapped by bandits. She was rediscovered shortly after World War II. Invigorated by the rejuvenating airs of the Alatau, she is happily married to a bandit chieftain, with four cats and 70 grandchildren named Genghis.

  Dr. Neil Williamson is employed as an investigative dentist reporting to the Scottish Executive Parliamentary Task Force assessing the feasibility of a national dental census. He believes that knowing exactly which teeth each citizen has or doesn’t have is vital in the statistical war against tooth decay. Dr. Williamson contributes a regular column to International Gingivitis Review, and owns a dental prosthesis consultancy in Glasgow’s West End that principally supplies exaggerated canines to students who want to be vampires. In his spare time he is afflicted with the miserable wasting disease known as Scottish Football, counts people’s teeth in the street, practices paralegal horticulture by pursuing his quest to hybridize the Scotch Bonnet chili with the cannabis plant, writes fiction, and races whippets. Sometimes he wins.

  Dr. Andrew J. Wilson studied unnatural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He later collaborated with Herbert West at Miskatonic University in Arkham, but rumors that he also
collaborated with the Germans during World War II are completely without foundation. His monograph on automotive gremlinology was erroneously published as fiction in The Year’s Best Horror Stories by Karl Edward Wagner who, as a doctor himself, should have known better. “Under the Bright and Hollow Sky,” Dr. Wilson’s personal reminiscences of Old Edinburgh scenes and worthies, has also been egregiously scheduled for publication in a short-story anthology called Gathering the Bones.

  Dr. Gahan Wilson is both the most influential figure in medical history and its most mysterious. Until he published “Do Any of Us Actually Exist?” in the Southwestern New Jersey Journal of Medicine there was no doubt Dr. Wilson had been, but since its appearance it’s unclear whether he was or not. A complication is that those claiming there was no Dr. Gahan Wilson have ceased to exist while those maintaining he did have doubled and sometimes tripled in number. The writer of this biography would like it to be universally understood he holds no opinion whatsoever on this matter.