The Sawbones Book

The Horrifying, Hilarious Road to Modern Medicine

De: Justin McElroy, Dr. Sydnee McElroy

Narrado por: Justin McElroy, Dr. Sydnee McElroy

A compelling, often hilarious, and occasionally horrifying exploration of how modern medicine came to be!

Wondering whether eating powdered mummies might be just the thing to cure your ills? Tempted by those vintage ads suggesting you wear radioactive underpants for virility? Ever considered drilling a hole in your head to deal with those pesky headaches? Probably not. But for thousands of years, people have done things like this - and things that make radioactive underpants seem downright sensible! In their hit podcast, Sawbones, Sydnee and Justin McElroy breakdown the weird and wonderful way we got to modern healthcare. And some of the terrifying detours along the way.

Every week, Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin amaze, amuse, and gross out (depending on the week) hundreds of thousands of avid listeners to their podcast, Sawbones. Consistently rated a top podcast on iTunes, with over 15 million total downloads, this rollicking journey through thousands of years of medical mishaps and miracles is not only hilarious but downright educational. While you may never even consider applying boiled weasel to your forehead (once the height of sophistication when it came to headache cures), you will almost certainly face some questionable medical advice in your everyday life (we’re looking at you, raw water!) and be better able to figure out if this is a miracle cure (it’s not) or a scam.

©2018 Weldon Owen Inc. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Love Justin and Sydney

Even as a listener to nearly every episode of the podcast, I loved this book! Great listen.

A strong 4.5

When I got this as a 'daily deal' I'd never heard, nor even heard of, their podcast. Their humor, personalities, delivery, and stories sometimes didn't land with me. For the overwhelming majority though, these stories were disarmingly engaging. It was a fun, entertaining, and educational quick listen with bite-sized chapters.

sawbones

Very informative book and funny twists of medical quackery ... you'll learn much on this 15 million listening people to this podcast.

history

I love this book!!!! There is so many fun yet serious things to learn about it makes me want to learn more about medical history.

Great addition to the podcast

I LOVE the podcast and this book is just like the podcast. If you are not a fan/listener of the podcast, some of the interactions may seem odd to you. Do yourself a favor and go listen to the podcast and get the book.

a good book

the McElroy's are are a lot of fun and they did a good job on this book.

Not Hilarious

There is a lot to like here, but the problem is that there is much to dislike as well. This is really a list of horrible ailments and awful historical attempts to cure them. None of the topics are discussed in detail-- in the blink of an eye one "section" is over and they're on to the next one. The female voice is more appealing than the guy, who gets nerdier and more annoying as it goes along. Some of the asides are pretty funny, I guess, but there is nothing amusing about these maladies, the suffering they caused and the failed treatments.

So good!

Please purchase the physical book as it is gorgeous! And go binge the podcast if you don't already listen! if you enjoyed this book even a little, you will LOVE the Sawbones podcast! Seriously, why are you still reading this?! Go listen now!

Fantastic whether you’re a fan of the podcast or not

I’m a fairly regular listener of the podcast and wondered whether there would be much overlap, but I came away learning just a ton of new stuff!Listening to Justin & Sydnee was a pleasure, and I’d recommend their book for anyone whether you listen to the podcast or not. Both are hilariously entertaining, and you’ll actually learn some stuff! Would gift to anyone even remotely interested in weird medical and scientific history

Love Sawbones, Poorly Performed

I am a huge fan of Sawbones and love all McElroy products... But this is just hard to listen to. The jokes are all read in an unnatural flat tone, I'm sure it's hard to read jokes and make it sound natural... but if you're a fan I would strongly strongly recommend reading the paper version of this book. I cannot stress enough that this book is full of interesting content, but I think the performance makes it difficult to engage with.