Author Archive | Brandy Schillace

Approaching Death by “Headhunting”

By Brandy Schillace on July 25, 2013 in News 1

p008 HEAD HUNTERS OF GRIEF?

Among the Ilongot people of the Northern Philippines, it was common to headhunt during the “rage of bereavement.” Upon the loss of a loved one, the men of the Ilongot would hunt and kill other men. It seems unthinkable to us, especially as death in Western culture leads (or is meant to lead) to a contemplation of the sanctity of life. Furthermore, in a culture where we have euphemisms like “prostrate with grief” or “paralyzed by sadness,” it is hard to imagine the pull towards so war-like an activity, especially when there is no revenge involved. Given the unusual and unusually violent nature of this ritual, we naturally look for explanations. What causes this behavior?

Anthropologist Renato Rosaldo writes extensively about the Ilongot and their bereavement rage–and about his own cultural assumptions. When he asked the tribesmen what drove them to the practice, they claimed that severing and throwing away a head was the same as throwing away the anger at death.

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Medical History and the ‘Monster’

By Brandy Schillace on April 1, 2013 in News 14

Medical history so often includes intersections and byways that seem to take us into folklore, fiction, and the Gothic imagination itself.

While researching “monstrous” births from the early 1800s, I came across the following reprint of Kirby’s wonderful and scientific museum: or, Magazine of remarkable characters. The story recounts a child “covered with long hair” and “grovel[ing] upon the ground” is fastened to a post like a dog. Described as “wild and ferocious,” the story resembles those of the dog children—but the narrative has been embellished with the tone and phrasing now made famous by the Gothic narratives from Udolpho onwards. The “gentleman” who reports the scene says “he never say so wild and wretched a spot as the situation of the poor hut where they reside” and that “A most horrible mystery seems to hang over the whole.”[i] The landscape, a repeated trope of wretched wildness, is imbued with mysterious overtones that have, mainly, to do with paternity.… Read the rest

The Dark Secrets of Medicine–Revealed in a New Series!

By Brandy Schillace on March 24, 2013 in News 30

Imagine, if you will, a low stone slab. Upon it, dimly lit and un-preserved, is a three-day-old corpse going slowing rancid in warm the summer night. This, young surgeon, is your textbook. If you are lucky. For many a medical student, the remains were less fresh, less available (and occasionally less human) than the one I have described. In the 16th century, Andreas Vesalius–the father of anatomy–had to steal half-rotten bodies from the gibbet after hanging. Not what you expect, perhaps, of the profession that has since risen to be one of the most well-respected and well-paid in medicine; long years were spent in the dark before surgeons (and surgery) entered the light.

What happened in this shadowy period is the subject of myth, mystery, mayhem and history–and all of it is rendered in fascinating detail by a new documentary project: Medicine’s Dark Secrets, brought to you by the indefatigable Chirurgeon’s Apprentice: Dr.… Read the rest