The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide To Eccentric & Discredited Diseases Read online

  WILSON, ANDREW J. here

  WILSON, GAHAN here

  YELLIN, TAMAR here

  The Life of Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead (1900– )

  Thackery Trajan Lambshead was born on St. Genesius the Comedian’s Day (August 25th), 1900, in Wimpering on the Brink, Devon (county), England. He was the second of seven children born to Caspar and Eucaria Lambshead, although a putative resemblance between Thackery and one Neb Gariad, itinerant glass blower and sin-eater who passed through Devon late in 1899, has been the cause of some rather pointless gossip. Caspar Lambshead served his community as a notary public and importer and retailer of monkey-picked teas (although his father had run a traveling medicine show). Eucaria, who had enjoyed some minor success on the stage, gave voice lessons and raised owls. A mediocre student with a penchant for marbles and catching frogs, Thackery proved to be a late bloomer. His interest in medicine crystallized in 1913, when his mother was struck in the head with a petrified sponge belonging to Kimball’s Curiosities, which sponge had accidentally been displaced from its temporary situation on a third-floor windowsill overlooking the street in a moment of mental abstraction on the part of Mr. Rearben Kimball, Jr. The resulting injury, while not life threatening, brought on a case of classic amnesia from which Eucaria Lambshead never recovered—and neither did her son. He put aside his ambition to appear in silent films and, largely by mere force of will, got himself admitted to Oxford Medical College.

  Thackery later confessed to Sterling Silliphant that he passed through his remarkably rapid medical training in “a brown study.” Intense, somber, indefatigable, and seemingly immune to the lure of the ordinary student dissipations, he graduated in 1918, easily the most generally resented graduate in the history of that institution (perhaps the fatuous rumors involving Lambshead in an infernal bargain originated at this time—however they began, he has never entirely been able to shake them). His reception among the staff at Combustipol General Hospital, back in Devon, was far warmer, and, during his internship there, his mood correspondingly improved. A lifelong pacifist, he elected, in late 1919, to tend veterans at the St. Agnes Charity Clinic of Edinburgh, as his Whitmanesque way of contributing to what he called the “post-War effort.” There was, at this time, some expectation of marriage (the details are impossible to trace), which met with an abrupt and bitterly disillusioning reverse, and this, perhaps, was, at least in part, to blame for Lambshead’s decision to leave England for a time. The tendency to bury any possibility of a private life in an unremitting application to his work would be one of the only constants in his eventful life. He traveled to India, where he established his first and only private practice; the work bored him, and he made use of his spare time to pursue all manner of projects, from public works and choreography for the Salvation Army Modern Dance Society, to the accumulation of medical documents of a generally abstruse and obscure character. It is out of this latter pastime that the Guide was born.

  Lambshead took advantage of an offer to serve as court physician to Prince Varchambara of Nagchampabad—the position afforded considerable free time, and the Prince’s libraries were vast—and he produced the first formal collection-draught within six months. This was not simply a matter of collating materials, but also, most crucially, of developing a methodology for their evaluation. Forced to abandon his post within the year, due to an imbroglio with one of the Prince’s wives, Lambshead, now completely dedicated to the perfection of his Guide, moved to Berlin.

  Berlin in the 1920s was a heady place, an anarchic hubbub of possibilities; in addition to his extensive research in the medical archives of that city, Lambshead also had ample opportunity to contribute materials based on his own eyewitness accounts. Indeed, some entries were written on the very spot of discovery, in the presence of the victim, as was the case with Erotomotor Pseudalgia and 139 Hauptstrasse Explosive Plumagnetism, the latter named for the street address adjacent to which the first known attack took place (the subject’s body erupted in iron feathers and elaborately-pigmented wattles in Dr. Lambshead’s presence—as the plumage was highly magnetic, the patient was able to walk only in the direction of magnetic north). Aggravated Inguinal Palsy was provided to Dr. Lambshead by the real Mata Hari (not the patsy who was executed in her place), whom he met by chance in the back parlor of The Black Cube Club. In his travels throughout Europe, Lambshead visited nearly every major city on the continent, and a great many of the more out-of-the-way spots as well, combing even monastic records for evidence of unknown ailments.

  In 1928, after a brief stint in hospital (not due to illness: having encountered Antonin Artaud in the streets of Paris, and rather foolishly slapping him in the face with the injunction, in English, to “Snap out of it,” Dr. Lambshead found himself at the mercy of the irate actor’s horny knuckles), Lambshead set off on the first of his many African expeditions. He left Europe in a huff, after receiving an endless series of obtuse rejection letters from all the major medical and even commercial publishing houses he had approached with the Guide. “Book publishers are the most infernally slow and pachydermously unimaginative race ever to blast the surface of the earth!” he wrote to Andreas Embirikos. “A pox on those turquoise devils!”

  Lambshead spent much of the 1930s infatuated with Madagascar, where he wrote the now classic “Treatise on Trans-species Human-Lemur Pyrethroblastosis and Emittostomatism, or Crater Flatulence,” which many regard as his masterpiece, and still had time to cultivate his own peculiar strain of antibiotic vanilla. His idyllic, if solitary, life on the cliffs overlooking Madagascar’s otherworldly beaches was disrupted by rumors of war; his only college friend, John Trimble, who had been secretly employed by Winston Churchill to spy on the Germans, warned of the impending conflict, and Lambshead decided to return to England and make his services available there. He worked at three different London hospitals during the Blitz, and returned by special arrangement to Combustipol General Hospital. After the war, it was largely in recognition of his Hippocratic zeal that Chatto & Windus rescinded their former rejection of the Guide and offered to make it available to the public for the first time, in 1946. Lambshead thereafter embarked on what would become the first of many legendary, perhaps infamous, expeditions to South America; on one such trip, he met Jorge Luis Borges, much to the delight of both parties.

  In the later 1940s and early 1950s, Lambshead visited America several times, finding it a veritable goldmine of all manner of especially bizarre and embarrassing diseases. Not unlike The Beatles, Dr. Lambshead was welcomed by his American “fans” with surprising enthusiasm; the Guide roughly doubled in length as a consequence of these visits. However, owing to certain characteristically candid remarks made about Messrs. McCarthy and Nixon, and to the frankly Communist affiliations of some of Dr. Lambshead’s associates (and perhaps to his anti-sabotage of the Pepsi Corporation in 1949), he ran afoul of Mr. Hoover and was thereafter denied permission to visit the United States for several years. In 1958, while on a Canadian-backed lichen expedition with Trimble to the island of Svalbard in the Barents Sea, Lambshead happened to save the crew of the United States submarine Nautilus from an outbreak of Sudden Onset Type Three Erysclapian Nolamela, and thus temporarily won back the favor of the U.S. government. He would later take advantage of this goodwill to secure a federally-financed research position.

  In the 1960s, Lambshead worked in a number of locations scattered across the United States, and collaborated with Leary, Lilly, and (briefly) with Wilhelm Reich; he returned to India, spent many months in Burma, Java, and Tibet (where he first identified Onco-astral Monasticism and Chant Throat). In the 1970s, among other exploits, Lambshead returned to the Amazon with a vengeance; to date, he has made over a dozen extended expeditions into the jungle. Overwhelmed by the quantity and richness of Lambshead’s discoveries, experts have not yet catalogued the contents of the many crates of botanic, fungal, chemical, and zoological specimens.

  Since the 1980s, Dr. Lambshead has generally preferred to explore the wi
ldernesses of cities and suburbs rather than rough, natural places. He now teaches wherever and whenever time permits, not only at medical schools, but at community colleges, Rotary and Elks’ clubs and lodges (the photograph of Dr. Lambshead riding in a tiny Shriner’s car has unfortunately been suppressed), and even at tent meetings and Sunday schools. Thanks to sizeable grants from the Institute for Further Study, the Society for the Dissemination of Useful Knowledge, and the Institutional Study Society Group, Dr. Lambshead now has his own hermetically-sealed lab at Wimpering, where he is presently researching autonomous epidermi and the homing instinct in colloids.

  COMPILED BY DR. MICHAEL CISCO

  An Enthusiastic Foreword by the Editors

  When Dr. Lambshead told us we were to edit not only this special commemorative edition of the Guide but all future editions, we were rendered speechless. At least, I know I didn’t know what to say—my co-editor may have been more erudite. For several moments, life took on a surreal brilliance and became somehow . . . brighter, more sparkly.

  Nonetheless, we recovered from our awe in time to edit the edition you now hold in your hands. It has been a real learning experience. First, due to the interesting side effects of Dr. Lambshead’s rather unique stirrings of dementia. Second, due to our interactions with the various odd (and sometimes, to be honest, scary) medical experts who contributed to this edition. Coordinating the publication of a medical guide with over 60 contributing doctors could perhaps most accurately be compared to herding cats. If it wasn’t Dr. Stepan Chapman complaining that his work was under-represented in this edition, it was Dr. Paolo G. Di Filippo asking us for 650 contributor copies, one for each word in his entry. Dr. Brian Evenson wanted us to send him two sets of proofs for some reason. Dr. Tim Lebbon demanded to be paid in fruit. Dr. John Coulthart abhorred our initial design; he was so vociferous in his many emails, telephone calls, faxes, and letters (not to mention bull-horn-delivered tirades outside both of our houses at inappropriate hours) that we finally agreed to let him design the Guide. Most doctors complained so much about our standardization of internal references that we agreed to leave them as-is.

  We should note that some doctors did display notable restraint and grace. Dr. Jeffrey Thomas, for example, agreed not to sue us over an issue we would rather not resurrect at this time (the subject was, as Dr. Thomas should know, already dead). Dr. Kage Baker sent us 40 pounds of dried smoked bird flesh with a note indicating we should “light it up and puff.” Dr. Neil Gaiman sent us a posthumous letter entitled “Some Advice,” which we have published under the title “Diseasemaker’s Croup.”

  The many acts of kindness, the many acts of madness—these kept us focused on our task, especially when Dr. Iain Rowan sent us something in a wet box that slurped out onto the floor. That wasn’t our best memory of the experience, to be honest. Still, we would not trade our memories of those long months working with these intrepid men and women of science for anything, unless, of course, it was for an end to worldwide disease. Then we might be tempted to trade.

  Throughout it all, of course, Dr. Lambshead led us in our efforts to maintain the high standards he had imposed on the Guide over the years (as best expressed in the reprints of diseases from prior editions). Our combined expertise in chiropractic medicine, veterinary medicine, mycology, clairvoyance, litigation, and itching/scratching diseases gave us a solid foundation for medical guide editing. However, Dr. Lambshead’s many pithy yet vociferous suggestions on various matters made all the difference. We could not have asked for a better mentor (we should not be thought churlish for having asked for one at certain points in the process). Whether pontificating from what might well be his deathbed or whispering advice to the large mummified baboon head that he often mistook for our smiling visages, Dr. Lambshead remained the spirit, the soul, behind our efforts.

  Now that we have managed to bring this edition to fruition, we can turn our attention to future editions of the Guide. We believe that our close relationship with Dr. Lambshead and our newly-gained editorial experience can be put to good use. The 2004 edition of the Guide will be devoted to itching-and-scratching diseases. The 2005 edition of the Guide will devoted to diseases of the inner thigh. The 2006 edition of the Guide will be devoted to “Degenerate and Misguided Diseases” as opposed to “Eccentric and Discredited Diseases,” which should provide a fresh perspective.

  As we sail farther into the Twenty-First Century, rest assured that we will be steady captains of the ship that is the Guide, our hands firmly on the steering device, our stern proudly pointed to the horizon. Thank you all for joining us on this important journey into the diseased future.

  EDITORS DR. JEFF VANDERMEER AND DR. MARK ROBERTS

  A Reluctant Introduction by Dr. Lambshead

  There’s no small irony in the fact that I loathe doctors, medical guides, and introductions to medical guides. Doctors have done more to set back the cause of medicine over the last two thousand years than the Visigoths did to bloody the Romans. And introductions have wasted more trees to less effect than most bureaucratic white papers.

  However, medical guides may be the worst offenders. Medical guides have proven to be the last refuge of the incompetent—a crutch for members of the medical community to lean on despite having perfectly good legs. Like some sort of science-based Ouija board, the medical guide allows the doctor to forego using his or her own brain in favor of trusting someone else’s dubious opinion. Worse, the medical guide gives the layperson a false sense of security. It seems to speak with the voice of authority. In its bewildering catalog of symptoms, case studies, footnotes, endnotes, and indices, it appears to apply logic to otherwise illogical situations.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. The standard medical guide supports and displays the neuroses and foibles of its creators as much or more so than a jejune pulp commercial novel with a ripped bodice or ripped bicep on the cover. Depending on the creator’s area of expertise or current emphasis, the guide may be skewed to a particular agenda. That agenda may not always be to the patient’s benefit—as in the common case wherein a guide recommends a certain company’s drugs over all other solutions.

  Medications are the crutch to the crutch that is the modern medical guide. If there were truth in advertising, the man on the street would open a medical guide and out would pour hundreds of pills, individually labeled to cure any malady. Pills. The root of all medical evil. The source of medical quackery since before the advent of the traveling medicine show. The panacea that says you can solve all of your problems in the same way that Alice created all of hers in that god-awful book by Carroll. I’m here to tell you that, in more than 80 years as a licensed physician (which description of my talents should, by all accounts, discredit everything I’m about to tell you, except that I am also accredited as a healer by the Quichua of Peru and the Tartars of the steppe), I have seen more deaths due to misapplication of or reliance on pills than from any other source. I have seen healthy, strapping men brought low by pills. I’ve seen toothaches that became purulent penile discharge in Malaysia. In Timbuktu, I’ve seen a Sufi holy man suffering from gout shoot flames from his arse as a result of a misapplication of pills by a young doctor newly brought in from the Soviet Union. And it’s probably best not even to mention what happened in Zaire in 1977.

  Why do physicians rely on pills so heavily? (And, yes, I do mean this question to be applied orally to both doctor and patient, twice a day, preferably.) They are not bad people; they mean well. But they have been so shackled by the nonsensical rigors of medical school that their brains literally change chemical composition. Anyone who has ever seen the difference between the CAT scan of the brain of a typical first-year medical student and that same student’s brain after graduation will understand what I’m getting at. The free will appears to flee from such bodies like a frightened Tibetan mountain spirit. (Medical schools are even worse than medical guides, now that I think about it, but a full discussion of their peculiarities and gross rites would ta
ke a book in and of itself.) Those who do not stay to become teachers themselves flee into the wide world waving their pathetic diplomas like a spell to ward off evil.

  But where do they flee to? God knows, most of the time it’s into safe family practice where they can develop a “niche.” Tapping knees and listening to hearts beating for 30 or 40 years while doing nothing medically speaking that would get their own blood pressure above 120/80. Rare is the member of the medical profession who will chuck all those received ideas and, metaphorically naked (although, sometimes literally naked—it is impossible to gain approval with certain Papua New Guinea tribes of the interior without stripping down to nothing and donning a huge penis sheath, sad to say), plunge into the world of eccentric diseases. True, some of this work will become discredited over time, as this guide itself proves, but even what remains discredited and truly eccentric will help save more lives than any pill or conventional medical guide. Or conventional doctor, for that matter.

  That some favored few have recognized this fact is proven by the longevity of my guide. When I first started it in 1921, it was meant as a shorthand for myself, a way of keeping track of all those maladies the traditional medical community had forgotten, discounted, or ignored. As I traveled around the world, to the most remote and clandestine locations, I found not only more of these poor abandoned diseases, from which previous doctors had recoiled in horror or disbelief, but also more men and women of medicine willing to call the Motile Snarcoma found in this very volume “Motile Snarcoma,” for example, and not just “surgical incompetence.” (Where else but in the Guide can one find diseases resurrected from the junkpile of history, dusted off, and found to be quite relevant?)

  Still, it was many years before anything approaching acceptance came from the medical community at large. It grieves me greatly, for example, that not a single medical publisher in the world would publish this latest edition of the Guide. I am certainly indebted to Night Shade Books for publishing the Guide, even though their normal fare is of dubious informational quality, but something in me still yearns for the Guide’s acceptance by medical schools, hospitals, and other places I despise where it might do an amazing amount of good.