As Diane mentioned in a comment in the post below this one, I’ve been sick with bronchitis. But a few days of antibiotics and I’m feeling like new again. Well, not NEW exactly. After all, I still have this almost 40-year old body.

You would think that after a week of no posts, I would have something to write about. I don’t. So I’ll tell you about the book I read while I was sick and in bed.

98 Reasons for Being, by Clare Dudman. This was a fiction based on fact, about a Jewish woman placed in an insane asylum in Frankfurt in the mid-1800’s. Jewish people weren’t actually allowed in the asylums with other citizens then, so the story as it was couldn’t have happened. But most of the rest, including the name of the asylum, the Doctor’s name who ran it, and the medical procedures and medical theories, were fact.

I knew that doctors were crazy back then, but some of the procedures and theories described in this book were jaw-dropping. For instance: in it there was an actual list written by a group of doctors of the top causes of insanity. One of them was CURED hemorrhoids. That’s right. You should never cure hemorrhoids because it may cause the patient to go insane. Then on the list of top uses for leeches, there was this: Place one leech on the rectum of someone who is going insane from having their hemorrhoids removed, so the leech will imitate the missing hemorrhoids, and the patient might regain their sanity. Ummmmmm… yeah, ok… a slimy critter latching to and sucking on my ass…. that will put me in my right mind.

ANYWAY, It was a really good book, a great story. I recommend it.