George Gould and Walter Pyle’s 1901 Book: Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine

From the book:

Harris reports several cases of bearded women, inmates of the Coton Hill Lunatic Asylum. One of the patients was eighty-three years of age and had been insane forty-four years following a puerperal period. She would not permit the hair on her face to be cut, and the curly white hairs had attained a length of from eight to ten inches on the chin, while on the upper lip the hairs were scarcely an inch.

University of Virginia Electronic Text Center has a set of marvelous scans of George Gould and Walter Pyle’s Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, first published in 1901.

This particular image is one of the mildest, folks – there are many, many much more interesting images and text of strange diseases and medical conditions here: Link (Highly recommended – if you click on only one link today, this should be it! Let me know your favorites …)