The Sawbones Book: The Horrifying, Hilarious Road to Modern Medicine

Written by Justin McElroy, Dr. Sydnee McElroy and Teylor Smirl

Narrated by Justin McElroy and Dr. Sydnee McElroy

A compelling, often hilarious and occasionally horrifying exploration of how modern medicine came to be!

Wondering whether eating powdered mummies might be just the thing to cure your ills? Tempted by those vintage ads suggesting you wear radioactive underpants for virility? Ever considered drilling a hole in your head to deal with those pesky headaches? Probably not. But for thousands of years, people have done things like this—and things that make radioactive underpants seem downright sensible! In their hit podcast, Sawbones, Sydnee and Justin McElroy breakdown the weird and wonderful way we got to modern healthcare. And some of the terrifying detours along the way.

Every week, Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin amaze, amuse, and gross out (depending on the week) hundreds of thousands of avid listeners to their podcast, Sawbones. Consistently rated a top podcast on iTunes, with over 15 million total downloads, this rollicking journey through thousands of years of medical mishaps and miracles is not only hilarious but downright educational. While you may never even consider applying boiled weasel to your forehead (once the height of sophistication when it came to headache cures), you will almost certainly face some questionable medical advice in your everyday life (we’re looking at you, raw water!) and be better able to figure out if this is a miracle cure (it’s not) or a scam.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781978624481

Justin McElroy

Meet the McElroys! Clint was born first, which recent studies have shown is the best procedure for fathers and sons. Justin came along twenty-five years later, two weeks late, actually, which caused his mother, Leslie, some consternation and more than a little back pain. Three years to the day (yes, the very day) Travis came along, forever ruining Justin’s birthday, at least according to Justin. The decision was made to not have a third child born on November 8th, so Griffin arrived three-and-a-half years later on April 17th. There followed this decade and that, during which there was a lot of school, theater, broadcasting, video games, moving around the country and various and sundry monkeyshines. Then came a time for fewer monkeyshines, so a ton of marriages happened and people were added to the family branch. In the midst of all this begetting, podcasts began springing up in even greater abundance and their names were My Brother My Brother and Me (which spawned a popular tv show), Sawbones, Shmanners, Wonderful, and a farcical romp called The Adventure Zone.

Reviews for The Sawbones Book

[kity16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked it. It contains interesting information. And i loved that it was read by the authors.

[Tyler Butler · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Annoying.
The information was interesting, but wow….the “humor” if you could call it that, was pathetic. I could see some second graders giggling, but as a mature adult… it was lame. The humor was seemingly added to just draw out the book as filler. The narration left much to be desired, to say the least.

[Rosa Maria Lechner · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good content but at times all over the place. Also, just not my kind of humor, but that is a matter of taste.

[Cole · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I may just be used to the podcast format, but I'm not a big fan of the joke delivery in this format. The content itself was very interesting and enjoyable!

[Lizzie T · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love the podcast and the book was great too.

[Natalie Jayne Taylor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed the book. The stories were interesting. The order of stories felt a little random, but did not take away from my enjoyment.