Bamber Gascoigne presents universal challenge to swot-up on medical history online

Ten starters from medical history, did you know:

1. When X-rays were discovered in 1895, public excitement was tinged with anxiety at the idea of a ray which could penetrate clothing. X-ray proof knickers were soon on the market to foil purchasers of X-ray glasses.

2. The Spanish 'flu epidemic of 1918-1919 killed 30 million people worldwide, more than anything else in history during just one year. In contrast, there were 8.5 million combat deaths during World War One.

3. The 19th century English writer, Harriet Martineau, was so afraid of being buried alive that she bequeathed her doctor ten guineas to ensure that her head was cut off after her death.

4. The first paper supporting a link between smoking and cancer was published in Germany in 1939. Adolf Hitler was impressed and banned tobacco in the Luftwaffe.

5. The first radiograph of a human brain, published in 1896, was actually a dish of cat intestines.

6. After the stethoscope was invented in 1816, some early instruments were several feet long so that modest patients could be examined in the next room.

7. The Spanish Inquisition considered tobacco smoking to be a mark of possession since only Satan could confer upon humans the power to exhale smoke through the mouth.

8. As a cure for insanity, the 18th century Anglican priest, John Wesley, recommended 'setting the patient with his head under a great waterfall, as long as his strength will bear'.

9. Human teeth extracted from soldiers killed at Waterloo (1815) were used to make dentures.

10. Crepe rubber condoms became available after 1844 when Hancock and Goodyear developed the rubber vulcanisation process. They increased in popularity and respectability with packaging which featured colour portraits of Queen Victoria and her Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.