It’s your May Bonus Episode, thanks to our supporters on Patreon.com, and this time we are revisiting the episode with Dr Keir Shiels about the World’s Worst Doctor. Our winner was John R. Brinkley whose practice of putting goat-balls into human ballsacks to treat impotence leads Ben to take us through a history of fertility treatments. There are welcome returns for Pliny The Elder, the Malleus Maleficarum and the wandering womb, as well as plenty of animal body parts and urine - just a typical episode for us here at WFF.
094 - MIKE STUCHBERY - WORLD'S WORST EPIDEMIC
This week we're donning our sterilised plastic gloves, three face masks and a full hazmat suit as we prepare to deal with the world's most peculiar, disturbing and deadly epidemics. We're joined by outstanding historian and curator of one of the most informative and sinister Twitter feeds around, Mike Stuchbery.
Together we talk about renaissance nuns pretending to be cats, Singaporean men who think their wangers have disappeared and why it’s never a good idea to throw a smallpox party. We also discover the unusual genesis of cooties (hi America listeners!), dabble in some medieval witchcraft and discover why Portuguese schoolchildren have taken the biscuit with excuses for taking days off school.
Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @mikestuchbery_
Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s new baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward