Tuesday, July 05, 2022

Today -100: July 5, 1922: Of fancied senses of personal liberty and popcorn time at the Sorbonne


The Irish Free State forces are bombarding rebel-occupied hotels on O’Connell Street in Dublin. And they’re getting 3 planes from England for use tomorrow to bomb Dublin if Éamon de Valera refuses to surrender.

Polish authorities prohibit an anti-Semitic lecture in Vilna (Vilnius), resulting in a riot in which a cop is killed.

Pres. Harding gives a speech at Marion, Ohio for July 4th. He mentions Prohibition, which he almost never does, saying it’s the will of America, so it must be “sustained by the Government and public opinion” against a minority denied “a fancied sense of personal liberty.” He also talks about the “right to work,” by which he means the government will help corporations which hire strikebreakers.

In Paris, surgeon Jean Louis Faure films an operation he performs, the removal of a fibroma from a stomach, and shows it in a class at the Sorbonne. Which reminds me of an obscure fact I happen to know: the first autopsy shown on British tv was performed by Jonathan Miller of Beyond the Fringe.

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3 comments:

  1. Ah, yes, in The Body in Question, I assume? Although Miller was wearing his "I'm a clever fellow with a medical degree" hat for that. I recall he got BTF colleague Dudley Moore to help demonstrate a point he was making about neurology by doing something impressive on the piano.

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  2. Yes. Haven't seen it myself. Never released on VHS or DVD, I believe.

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  3. There was a companion book but as I haven't read my copy yet I can't vouch for its worth. And it would need to be a pop-up book to have a proper autopsy.

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