The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (60 page)

Investigators in Tacoma, Washington, were able to identify two generations of maggots on a body that had died by a gunshot wound. In doing so, they determined the approximate date of the corpse's demise, as a maggot's life cycle lasts only about three weeks. Armed with the estimated date of death, the investigators were able to trace the deceased's whereabouts and eventually find the killer.

FULL STOMACH

The Northern State Hospital for the Insane, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, boasts one of the more bizarre exhibits in museum history—a collection of artifacts that patients have swallowed during the asylum's 150-year history. Among the items are scissors, a bedspring, a toothbrush, and a thermometer. Also featured are twenty-six spoons that were all swallowed by one man.

MYSTERY CURE

It's easy to laugh at outlandish folk medicines of the past, but consider this: In 2001, a mysterious ancient Chinese potion made of ground rock and toad venom was investigated as a promising experimental cancer treatment at Sloane-Kettering Hospital in New York City. Scientists had no idea why, but the arsenic trioxide in the potion appeared to cure a particularly devastating kind of leukemia.

PRESERVATIVES

Today's morticians report that dead bodies don't decom-pose as fast as they used to. They speculate the
change is due to people eating food containing so many more preservatives than food of the past.

THREE-LEGGED WONDER

Francesco Lentini was born in 1889 with what appeared to be a tail but which was in fact a nearly developed foot growing from the base of his spine. Although he was treated as a disabled outcast most of his life, he found work in Italian sideshows and was quoted as having said, “I have never complained. I think life is beautiful, and I enjoy living it.” He lived to the ripe age of seventy-eight.

HEALING JEWELS

Originally, earrings were worn to guard the ears from illness. Earrings, particularly diamond earrings, were also believed to help eyesight. Wearing one silver and one gold earring was believed to be a cure for headaches.

STRANGE VIRGIN BIRTH

During World War II a young woman in Germany, Emmie Marie Jones, gave birth to a daughter, despite the fact that she insisted she was a virgin. In 1955, scientists in England did genetic testing and discovered that Emmie and her daughter were genetically identical twins. The only explanation the scientists could offer was that the shock of the bombing caused parthenogenesis, the spontaneous splitting of an unfertilized egg.