For many years members of the American Society of Magicians gathered on October 31 at Machpelah Cemetery in New York to break a magic wand over the grave of the man whose name is synonymous with...
Contrary to popular belief, aspirin does not occur in nature, it is not found in the willow tree. But there is a connection. Aspirin, or acetyl salicylic acid, was first produced commercially by...
Queen Victoria was the first monarch to give birth to a child under anesthesia. Prince Leopold, the Queen鈥檚 eighth child, was born in 1853 after her physician Dr. John Snow had administered...
Circe was the sorceress in Greek mythology who drugged Odysseus鈥� crew to make them forget their homeland, then proceeded to turn the men into swine. When Odysseus set out to rescue his crew, he...
Coffee first appeared in Canadian cups about two hundred years ago, some three hundred years after people in Africa and the Middle East were regularly consuming the beverage. The most popular...
The scene was a street corner in London sometime in the 17th聽century. A skeptical crowd had gathered to see if the performer could deliver on his promise to pour whatever drink asked for, be it...
Flatulence has been immortalized in this children鈥檚 song: 鈥淏eans, beans, the musical fruit / The more you eat, the more you toot.鈥� The same can be said of milk for those of us with lactose...
It was a scientific breakthrough. Persil, introduced by the German company Henkel in 1907 was the world鈥檚 first laundry powder. The name derives from perborate and silicate, two key components in...
I know what you鈥檙e thinking. If not evidence-based, what else could medicine be? Well, it could be based on conjecture, hearsay, wishful thinking, anecdote or just plain flim-flam. Indeed,...
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