Anniversary issue! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It seems that time really does move faster these days. It is hard to realise that I have now been in post as VP Surgical for a year and am therefore half way through my term.

The Kelvingrove Charter Day event was a great success and almost 400 fellows, members and guests danced and dined at Kelvingrove in spectacular surroundings. Same again next year?

I thought you might be interested to know about our web based reading community. This message was circulated today to 3411 surgical fellows and members worldwide.

We have a total of 4540 Fellows or Members with the classification of “surgeon” but only 3413 have given us a valid email address. Two (0.058%) regard this epistle as unwanted trash [Indeed!] and have declined to receive it. I have arranged to send the boys round to adjust their glazing!

Wildest advertisements

There has been an outbreak of weird creativity in the allied trades as they attempt new ploys to attract our attention. If you have any particularly good examples - send me a link.

Anomalies and curiosities

At this time of year some journals are noted for introducing a lighter approach. In that spirit I thought you might like to have access to some resources which will probably never be useful - but you never know. How about this for starters?

Anomalies and Curiosities in Medicine is the title of a book by Gould and Pyle. It is available based on the Project Gutenberg text. Find it here or here. For a specific surgical flavour - how about the "Surgical anomalies and curiosities." This includes tales of spectacular recovery following all manner of weird and wonderful injuries ranging from musket shot trauma through horrendous incidents with machinery of various kinds. There are tales of remarkable falls and dives from ridiculous heights. There are accounts of various self performed surgical procedures. The story is even told of the insane medical student in Dublin who extirpated both eyes and threw them away. There are other descriptions of amazing cases involving self inflicted damage, anomalous suicides, religious and even cosmetic mutilations. If you need some properly referenced tales of the surgically bizarre you are likely to find something here.