Edward Mordrake had an extra face on the back of his head, which could neither eat nor
speak, although it could laugh or cry. Edward begged doctors to have his "demon head"
removed, because, supposedly, it whispered horrible things to him at night, but no doctor
would attempt it.He committed suicide at the age of 23.
After three years in the U.S. Army, McCurdy traveled to Oklahoma and joined a gang of
bank and train robbers. It appears that McCurdy was confused about the train, and
believed it contained a safe which held thousands of dollars in government tribal payments.
The money train was delayed for a few hours, and McCurdy's gang actually robbed a
passenger train, getting away with $46 and a few bottles of liquor. Soon afterward
he was killed in a gunfight in the Osage Hills in north-central Oklahoma; reportedly he
was shot in the thorax by a .32-20 caliber bullet. A contemporary newspaper account
gave McCurdy's last words as "You'll never take me alive!"
His body was subsequently taken to a funeral home in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. When no
one claimed the corpse, the undertaker embalmed it with an arsenic-based preservative
and allowed people to see "The Bandit Who Wouldn't Give Up" for a nickel. People would
place nickels in McCurdy's mouth, which the undertaker would collect later. As
increasingly
large numbers of people came to view his remains (with each leaving a nickel),
McCurdy was said to have made more money in death than in life. Many carnival
operators asked to buy the mummified body from the undertaker, but he refused.
Almost five years after McCurdy died, a man showed up from a nearby traveling carnival
known as the Great Patterson Shows claiming to be McCurdy's long-lost brother. He
indicated that he wanted to remove the corpse to give it a proper burial. Within two
weeks, however, McCurdy was a featuredexhibit with the carnival. For the next 60 years,
McCurdy's body was sold to successive wax museums, carnivals, and haunted houses.
The owner of a haunted house near Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, refused to purchase
him because he thought that McCurdy's body was actually a mannequin and was not lifelike
enough.
Franz Reichelt (d. 1912) attempted to use this contraption as a parachute. Reichelt died
after he jumped off the Eiffel Tower wearing his invention, which failed to operate
properly as a parachute.
Mary Toft tricked doctors into believing that she had given birth to rabbits.
Toft became pregnant in 1726 but, following her reported fascination over the
sighting of a rabbit, suffered a miscarriage. She then claimed to have given birth to
various animal parts. Local surgeonJohn Howard was called to investigate, and
delivered several pieces of animal flesh. He duly notified other prominent physicians,
and the matter came to the attention of Nathaniel St. Andre, surgeon to the Royal
Household of King George I. Andre concluded that Toft was telling the truth, but the
king then sent surgeon Cyriacus Ahlers, who remained sceptical. By then quite famous,
Toft was brought to London and studied at length. Under intense scrutiny, and producing
no more rabbits, she eventually confessed to the hoax and was subsequently imprisoned
as a fraud.
Robert Liston - in his most famous surgery he managed a mortality rate of 300%. First
he amputated the leg of the intended patient in under 2 1/2 minutes. The patient
subsiquentially died from gangrene. During the same surgery he amputated the fingers
of his young assistant, who also died from gangrene. In his surgical exuberance he
slashed through the coat tails of a distinguished spectator, who was so terrified that
the knife had pierced his vitals, he dropped dead from fright.
Serge Voronoff - A French surgeon who gained fame for his technique of grafting
monkey testicle tissue on to the testicles of men. Voronoff's monkey-gland treatment
was in vogue in the 1920s. One poet described it as a "famous doctor who inserts monkey
glands in millionaires" The technique brought him a great deal of money. As his work
fell out of favour, he went from being highly respected to a subject of ridicule.
Wojteck was a 'Soldier Bear' in the Polish army. He enjoyed smoking and eating cigarettes.
He enjoyed wrestling and was taught to salute when greeted. As one of the officially
enlisted "soldiers" of the company, he lived with the other men in their tents or in a special
wooden crate transported on lorries. According to numerous accounts, during the
Battle of Monte Cassino, Wojtek helped his patrons by transporting ammunition, never
dropping a single crate. In recognition of the bear's popularity, the HQ approved an
effigy of a bear holding an artillery shell as the official emblem of the 22nd Company.
