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26.01.2026 18:33
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an extract from John Brand's 1810 'Popular Antiquities' which describes how on midsummer's eve 'in ancient times', people lit bonfires to dissuade lusty dragons from ejaculating in the wells and fountains, thus causing 'grievous distemper' or death.
public service announcement: it's St John's Eve so horny dragons are planning to Spermatize in your water supply which is considered suboptimal
Manuscript image of the quoted text (CASE33688 in the online edition).
Napier's social round. 5 July 1608 he visited the Countess of Cumberland at Grafton Regis '& was most kindly intertayned & she gave me hartes hornes the pissle of a hart. bezoar stone & the Earle gave me a black stone & a peece of a stags horne yellow seedes.' 'The Countes showed unto me her urine.'
They keep Sooty in a display case on the north pier in Blackpool like a glove puppet Jeremy Bentham
Black and white illustration. At the centre of the image is a large device, known by Matthews as an 'air loom'. It looks like a huge (perhaps 5 metres wide, 10 metres deep and 2 metres high) chest of drawers. It has pipes coming out of it and a man sits in front of it, pulling two giant levers. There are nine wooden barrels attached to the pipe with tubes. There are also 3 people who are connected to the loom by rays - they are being mesmerised by the rays it is emitting.
This is the first known asylum patient art ever printed. It is by Bedlam inmate James Matthews. It shows the range of his delusions - he feared a machine which was powered by the ‘effluvia of dogs’ and which attacked him using ‘lobster-cracking’ and ‘thigh-talking’
Image from @rcphysicians.bsky.social
18th century engraving of a man reclining on a bed stark bollock naked with his penis on show
Nice bed head oh hang on
That speaks to the influence of @tripeuk.bsky.social faqs
London's Bill of Mortality for this week in 1728 including 1 death from Bleeding, 2 from French Pox, 2 from Grief, 1 from Looseness, 5 were Suddenly, and 5 from Worms.
**New Entry** (or rather, Exit) this week in 1728: LOOSENESS
The Sausage Marketing Board should erect a statue of Florence Brewer on the Strand
Victorian drawing of a well dressed lady about to attack a butcher's shop with her umbrella. The headline reads: 'She was very fond of sausages'.
She Was Very Fond of Sausages
(London, 1894)
Title page of a book published in 1728: Plain Reasons for the Growth of Sodomy in England
Spoiler: it's Italian opera.
left: Nicolas Cage with long black hair and a moustache in a black top right: Spinoza with long black hair and a moustache in a black top
a short thread of Nicolas Cage resembling various philosophers
1. Spinoza
Newspaper clipping from 1833 which reads: "Dog strayed, on Wednesday the 8th instant, A black greyhound bitch – answers to the name of SLUT. She has a white breast; top of the tail white; the toes on all the feet white, with some grey hairs over the body."
oh to hear Victorians shouting for their dogs
Just imagine the fireworks at the 400th anniversary
Sorry – no big anniversary parade this year
Text from Samuel Pepys' diary, Dec 16 1665: 'Thence back, and landing at the Old Swan and taking boat again at Billingsgate and setting ashore at home; and I, lying down close in my boat, and there, without use of my hand, had great pleasure, and the first time I did make trial of my strength of fancy of that kind without my hand, and had it complete avec la fille que I did see aujourdui in Westminster Hall'
It's 359 years to the day since Samuel Pepys first tried hands-free masturbation 🥳 #OnThisDay
A newspaper report of 1925 explaining that the girl had a peculiar mania for driving locomotive engines and this was her second such exploit. No explanation is offered for her nude condition.
"She was nude, and was tampering with the levers"
Three pictures showing the adventures of a naked young lady illicitly driving a steam locomotive. They are titled: The naked girl drove the engine into some wagons, The police boarded the engine, and they wrapped her in a coat.
Demented Nude Girl's Extraordinary Adventure – Middlesbrough, 1925
(British Newspaper Archive)
A transcription of some graffiti spotted in a gents toilet in Worcester, 1940 which says: "A wank a day keeps the pox doctor away" as well as "All boys are the same, except the 'Daily Wanker and Tosser'" with what looks like a 1 pence coin or symbol. There is also a primitive illustration of a cock and balls to accompany it.
Putting #Worcester on the map with musings from the Gents lavatory, 1940. Pic: @massobsarchive.bsky.social
A coloured print from 1785 showing Toby the Sapient pig picking from a row of cards on the instructions of his keeper, surrounded by an audience of (fee paying) spectators. The spectacle was housed in a building opposite Horse Guards on Whitehall.
A building housing The Department for International Trade opposite Horse Guards on Whitehall, London
Toby the Sapient pig doing the numbers for the Dept for International Trade on Whitehall or was that 1785
An engraved illustration from 1820 showing a multi-limbed 'turnip' with an enigmatically smiling face and leaves like bouffant hair. Accompanying text (not shown) explains that this example of the mildly peppery but sweet tasting root vegetable was dug up in Germany in 1628.
We interrupt your joyscrolling to bring you a turnip
An 18th century cure for chin-cough. Take a spoonful of woodlice, bruise them, mix them with breast milk and take them three or four mornings according as you find benefit.
Anyone given this a go? #WhoopingCough #Pertussis
Text from an 1833 medical book on The Testicle, describing a demonstration by a man who could raise and lower each spud independently.
Men – what’s stopping you from doing this?
A photograph of South Place Hotel in Moorgate, London
A 1920s advertisement for the Wonder Worker - a medical device for inserting in the rectum with "no discomfort or unpleasantness" and which "no man or woman should be without."
If you're looking for somewhere historic to stay in London, South Place Hotel in Moorgate stands on the site of the Wonder-Worker butt plug factory
With apologies to those Notting Hill residents whose fabulous homes turn out to be where a Victorian surgeon meddled with ladies' twit-twots.
uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blac...
Sadly no parade or themed family events this year
Extract from the diary of Samuel Pepys, 1663 describing his difficulties with constipation and how a coach journey prompted a sustained sequence of farts, and some temporary relief.
Happy Pepys "six or seven small and great farts" day to all who observe 🥳🥳🥳 #OTD 1663
To cure hot feet (according to a remedy of 1653) soak them in stale urine in which snails have been boiled.
Hot feet? Sorted ⬇️