The art of medicine. Corpse medicine: mummies, cannibals, and vampires.

摘要

Imagine that you are out walking one evening in 1680, in the Wiltshire countryside near Avebury. Suddenly you spy two men, bent over a long, low artificial mound, vigorously plying spades. Before them a third figure is stooped intently over what seems to be a heap of white sticks. Still oblivious of your presence, he now lifts up something that is clearly not a stick. As he shifts the lantern in his other hand and the shadows flicker across his face, you have momentarily the strange illusion that he is speaking, perhaps whimsically interrogating the skull that sits in his outstretched palm.