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- A necromancer in The Seven Champions of Christendom, who by enchantment raised an army to resist the Christians. Six of the Champions fell, whereupon St. George restored them; Osmand tore out his own hair, in which lay his magic power, bit his tongue in two, disembowelled himself, cut off his arms and then died.
Brewer's Book of Myth and Legend,
J. C. Cooper, ed.
A "true" tale of pagan and Christian zombie-makers. How Osmand managed to cut off both his arms himself remains a necromantic mystery.
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- A notary, known from his youth as peculiar and misanthropic. During his school days he enjoyed masturbation. According to his own story, he excited his sexual desire by spreading pieces of toilet paper (that he had used) on the cover of his bed. He then induced erection by regarding and smelling them, and finally masturbated. After his death, a large basket of such papers, with dates marked on them, were found by the side of his bed. There were probably fantasies here in the realm of acts previously described in cases of masochistic coprolagnia.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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- At 10 AM, departed this life Jno Radon Boatswains Mate, his death was occasioned by the Boatswain, out of mere good nature, giving him part of a Bottle of rum last night, which it is supposed he drank all at once, he was found to be very much in Liquor last night, but as this was no more than what was common with him when he could get any, no farther notice was taken of him then to put him to Bed where this morning about 8 oClock he was found speechless and past recovery.
James Cook,
The Journals of Captain Cook
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- H. v. G., landed proprietor; major; died in his sixtieth year; came from a family in which irresponsibility, tendency to run in debt, and defect of morals were hereditary. He was given to reckless dissipation in his youth (he was known as the leader of “naked balls”). Although he always had a cynical and brutal nature, he was punctilious and exact in his military service, which he had to leave because of a disreputable affair that was not made public. He then lived in private life for seventeen years. Not needing to earn his living, he led the life of a man-of-the-town everywhere, and was widely avoided because of his lascivious nature. Ostracized by the best society- which, in spite of his independence, he noticed- he preferred instead the ordinary society of fakirs, artisans, and loafers. It could not be ascertained whether he had sexual intercourse with men, but it was certain that in his later years he arranged symposiums with mixed company and was known as a roué. In the last few years of his life, he would hang around new buildings in the evening, and, of the women working there, he would ask the dirtiest to accompany him. He would have the woman undress, and he would then suck her toes. His libido was excited and satisfied by the act.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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- To make presentable; to bring children up well etc. Derived from the widespread mediaeval belief that bear cubs are born shapeless and have to be licked into shape by their mothers. The story gained currency apparently from the Arab physician Avicenna (919-1037 A.D.) who tells it in his encyclopaedia.
Brewer's Book of Myth and Legend,
J. C. Cooper, ed.
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- A boy, aged twelve, became powerfully excited sexually when, by chance, he covered himself with a foxskin. From that time on there was masturbation using furs, or by taking a furry dog to bed. Ejaculation would result, sometimes followed by a hysterical attack. His nocturnal pollutions were induced by dreaming that he lay entirely enveloped by a soft skin. He was absolutely insusceptible to stimuli coming from men or women. He was neurasthenic, suffered from delusions of being watched, and thought that everyone noticed his sexual anomaly. Because of this, he had taedium vitae, and finally became insane. He had marked taint; his genitals were imperfectly formed, and he presented other signs of degeneration.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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- Once, right by Lowestoft Central station, which had not been refurbished since it was built in the nineteenth century, a black hearse decked out with wreaths slid past me amidst the other vehicles. In it sat two earnest-faced undertaker's men, the driver and a co-driver, and behind them, in the loading area, as it were, someone who had but recently departed this life was lying in his coffin, in his Sunday best, his head on a little pillow, his eyelids closed, hands clasped, and the tips of his shoes pointing up. As I gazed after the hearse I thought of that working lad from Tuttlingen, two hundred years ago, who joined the cortège of a seemingly well-known merchant in Amsterdam and then listened with reverence and emotion to the graveside oration although he knew not a word of Dutch. If before then he had marvelled with envy at the tulips and starflowers behind the windows, and at the crates, bales and chests of tea, sugar, spices and rice that arrived in the docks from the faraway East Indies, from now on, when occasionally he wondered why he had acquired so little on his way through the world, he had only to think of the Amsterdam merchant he had escorted on his last journey, of his big house, his splendid ship, and his narrow grave.
W. G. Sebald,
The Rings of Saturn
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- Died on the twenty-eighth day of the eleventh month, 1832
A willow branch Nageire no
that doesn't reach the water mizu no todokadu
in the vase. yanagi kana
Japanese Death Poems,
Yoel Hoffmann, ed.
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- A middle-aged man, married, a father, who came from a very nervous family but had always led a normal sex life, made the following communication: In his early youth he was powerfully excited sexually at the sight of a woman slaughtering an animal with a knife. From that time, for many years, he had reveled in the lustfully colored idea of being stabbed and cut, and even killed, by women with knives. Later on, after the beginning of normal sexual intercourse, these ideas completely lost their perverse stimulus for him.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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The
recent arrest of two men from UCLA's Willed Body Program has resurrected the venerated practice of body-snatching in the public imagination. In fact, these modern resurrection men stand to gain
a lot more than their 19th century forebearers could have dreamed:
- As prices have risen, some people who work closely with the dead have been unable to resist the temptation to skim off parts and sell them. By some estimates, a single body can be used to make products worth more than $200,000.
This is in stark contrast to what the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils came up with.
According to them, when the chemical and mineral constituents of the human body are totaled up, their value amounts to less than one dollar.
But bodys aren't just chemicals and minerals, and good money has always gone to those who could come up with the goods. Burke and Hare were 19th century resurrection men who decided that waiting for bodies to be dead was
less efficient than
making them dead.
- Their first victim was an old woman from Gilmerton, whom Hare noticed a little intoxicated on the streets. Hare accosted her and enticed her to his den, where she was stupefied with drink, and put to death in the manner they afterwards pursued, by covering and pressing upon the nose and mouth. The body was afterwards conveyed to Surgeons Square, where it was readily sold for 10 pounds in December 1827.
When one counts in the value of marrow, seed, and eggs, the value
goes up enormously.
- Bone marrow heads the list…priced at $23 million, based on 1,000 grams at $23,000 per gram.
DNA can fetch $9.7 million, while extracting antibodies can bring $7.3 million. A lung is worth $116,400, a kidney $91,400 and a heart $57,000.
Women’s eggs are costlier than men's sperm. The survey found that a fertile woman could sell 32 egg cells over eight years for $224,000; however, for a man to earn the same amount, he would have to make 12 sperm donations a month for 20 years.
Further reading
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- A rich man of twenty-six had lived for a year with a girl with whom he was very much in love. Although he cohabited only rarely, he was never perverse.
Twice during the year, after excessive indulgence in alcohol, he had had epileptic attacks. One evening after dinner, when he had taken much wine, he hurried to the house of his mistress and went into her bedroom, although the servant had told him she was not at home. From there he hastened into a room where a boy of fourteen was sleeping, and began to violate him. At the cry of the child, whose foreskin and hand he had injured, the servant rushed to the boy's aid. He left the boy and raped the maid; after that he went to bed and slept twelve hours. When he awoke, he had an indistinct memory of intoxication and coitus. Thereafter he had repeated epileptic attacks.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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- Take one drop of the Oyl of Vitriol and wet the teeth with it, and rub them afterward with a courfe cloath. although the medicine be ftrange, fear it not.
Hannah Wolley,
The Ladies Delight,
1672
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- One day, Mamma said: "Conrad dear.
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs,
And ere they dream what he's about,
He takes his great sharp scissors out
And cuts their thumbs clean off, - and then,
You know, they never grow again."
Mamma had scarcely turn'd her back,
The thumb was in, Alack! Alack!
The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legg'd scissor-man.
Oh! Children, see! the tailor's come
And caught out little Suck-a-Thumb.
Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast,
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands.
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands,-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb."
Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann,
The English Struwwelpeter,
1848
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