The Cadaver's Lessons

By Bernadette & Samantha Smith

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Category: True Crime

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Episodes: 65

Description

The Cadaver's Lessons is a podcast that explores the strange, fascinating, and sometimes unsettling history of medicine. Each episode traces the origins of medical practices and rare or unusual diagnoses, examining why people believed in them, how they were used, and what they reveal about the people and societies behind them.

From early anatomy and experimental treatments to cases where medicine and crime collide, this show examines what lessons the past has left behind. Some ideas evolved into the foundations of modern healthcare. Others? Definitely should have stayed buried.

Episodes range in tone and focus: some lean heavily into medical history and science, others drift into true crime, and many sit right at the intersection of both. If you’re curious about the darker side of medicine, the origins of what doctors do today, and the stories written into human bodies, well class is in session—and the cadaver is already on the table.


Episode Date
Case File: The Term Breech Trial: The One to Rule Them All
Aug 14, 2026
Breech Births: Ancient Tricks to Modern Trials
Aug 10, 2026
Case File: Body Packing: The Deadly Evolution of Drug Smuggling
Aug 07, 2026
Cocaine: Euphoria, Ischemia, and Sudden Death
Aug 03, 2026
Case File: The Hippocratic Oath: Medicine's Most Famous Promise
Jul 31, 2026
The Last Prescription: The History of Medical Aid in Dying
Jul 27, 2026
Case File: The Birth of Intubation: How Joseph O'Dwyer Changed Medicine Forever
Jul 24, 2026
From Tracheotomy to Intubation: The Evolution of Airway
Jul 20, 2026
Case File: The Man Who Put Defibrillators in Ambulances: The Story of Dr. Frank Pantridge
Jul 17, 2026
What It Takes to Stop Death: CPR
Jul 13, 2026
Case File: The First Insulin Murder: How Forensic Science Solved the "Perfect" Crime
Jul 10, 2026
From Insulin to Acidosis – Understanding Diabetic Emergencies
Jul 06, 2026
Case File: From Starvation to Survival
Jul 03, 2026
From Honey Urine to Modern Medicine: Understanding Diabetes
Jun 29, 2026
Case File: MK Ultra - CIA Mind Control
Jun 26, 2026
LSD and the Brain: Breaking Boundaries
Jun 22, 2026
Case File: The Florida “Botox” Scandal
Jun 19, 2026
Paralysis as Therapy: Botox
Jun 15, 2026
Case File: 8 Brutal Botulism Outbreaks
Jun 12, 2026
Paralyzed by a Bacteria: The Science of Botulism
Jun 08, 2026
Case File: The Panama Canal - Mosquitos and Mud
Jun 05, 2026
Malaria: How a Mosquito Bite Becomes Deadly
Jun 01, 2026
Case File: Clarissa Barton - The Angel of the Battlefield
May 29, 2026
Cut to Save: The Brutal Truth About Amputation
May 25, 2026
Case File: Eben Byers
May 22, 2026
Radiation: The Cure That Can Kill
May 18, 2026
Case File: Dr. Dhani Ram Baruah
May 15, 2026
Xenotransplantation: When Organs Aren’t Human
May 11, 2026
Case File: Dr. Horror
May 08, 2026
Organ Transplants: The Science of Second Chances
May 04, 2026
Case File: Utah State Training School
May 01, 2026
Huntington’s Disease: When Genetics Becomes Destiny
Apr 27, 2026
Case File: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Apr 24, 2026
Syphilis: The Great Imitator
Apr 20, 2026
Case File: Typhoid Mary
Apr 17, 2026
Before Soap: How Medicine Spread Disease
Apr 13, 2026
Case File: The Freedom House Ambulance Service
Apr 10, 2026
The Birth of EMS: From War Zones to City Streets
Apr 06, 2026
Case File: Jeanna Giese
Apr 03, 2026
If You Develop Symptoms, You Die: Rabies
Mar 30, 2026
Case File: The Leper King
Mar 27, 2026
Marked Untouchable: The Truth About Leprosy
Mar 23, 2026
Case File: From Slave to Saint, St. Patrick
Mar 20, 2026
The Bread The Caused Hallucinations, Gangrene, and Witch Trials: Ergot
Mar 16, 2026
Case File: Vietnam, Nurses, and Flutter Valves
Mar 13, 2026
Crack the Chest: The Evolution of Chest Tubes
Mar 09, 2026
Case File: King George III
Mar 06, 2026
Porphyria: The Original Vampire Myth
Mar 02, 2026
Case File: Blood Transfusions Turn Criminal
Feb 27, 2026
Transfused: Experiments, Scandals, and Survival
Feb 23, 2026
Case File: The Great Leech Craze
Feb 20, 2026
Bad Blood: When Medicine Drained the Patient
Feb 16, 2026
Case File: The Ray Brothers - The Children America Turned On
Feb 13, 2026
HIV & AIDS: Activism, Accountability, and the Fight Forward (Part 2)
Feb 09, 2026
Case File: The Tainted Blood Scandals
Feb 06, 2026
HIV & AIDS: Medicine, Misinformation, and the Cost of Stigma
Feb 02, 2026
Case File: Polio 1916 - A Quarantined Summer
Jan 30, 2026
When Viruses Stole Childhood: Polio’s Medical Legacy
Jan 26, 2026
Case File: ECT & The Nazis
Jan 23, 2026
Charged: Inside Electroconvulsive Therapy
Jan 19, 2026
Case File: 5 Lobotomy Horror Cases
Jan 16, 2026
Unwired: The Lobotomy Legacy
Jan 12, 2026
Case File: Amanda Feilding
Jan 09, 2026
Trepanation: What’s a little hole in the skull?
Jan 05, 2026
Welcome to the Table
Dec 28, 2025