Resources - Medicine, Human Body, Violence, and Death

[rhythmicquartz]

 

The Human Body/Medicine

 

Body Basics

• Photographic Height/Weight Chart: Excellent for those times when you wonder what a 150-lb., 5'10" man or woman might look like.
• Athletic Body Diversity - Reference for Artists
• The Guide to Human Types: Visual reference for skin color, hair color, eye color, etc. [Huh, this now appears to be a $17 e-book, but it’s pretty useful.]
• Eye color calculator based on genetics

 

Practice of Medicine - General

• Medical Dictionary
• Polite Dissent. “Geeky physician does reviews of the medicine in shows like House and Fringe, tries to make sense of comic book science, and lots of on-going jokes about pop culture medicine stuff like misused head mirrors, CPR, and psychic nosebleeds.”
• Jim Macdonald's medical posts on Making Light
• Primary Surgery Online. “It was created to supply doctors with basic surgical knowledge to cope with all surgical symptoms, even far away from referral centers.”

 

Injuries

• Injuries
• Your Guide to Fictional Injuries (FFA thread)
• Writing realistic injuries
• Hearing loss via blunt trauma (FFA thread)
• Corporal punishment (FFA thread)
• How many lashes can one person take? 
• What’s a really mundane way for someone to lose an eye?” (FFA thread)
• What the aftermath of a carbombing might look or smell like (FFA thread; Trigger warning: Gore)
• Torture (FFA thread; Trigger warning)
• Torture restraints (FFA thread; Trigger warning)
• Choking someone unconscious without killing or seriously harming them (also see FFA thread)

 

Illness/Infection

• Migraines (FFA thread)
• Low blood sugar (FFA thread)
• Amnesia links
• Heat stroke
• Hypothermia
• Possible hypothermia (FFA thread) 
• Hospital use of fluids for prolonged infection due to injury (FFA thread) 
• Unclean wound dressings and infection (FFA thread) 
• Fictional parasites (FFA thread) 
• Rancho Los Amigos Coma Scale ("more commonly used by rehab therapists than the Glasgow Coma Scale")
• Complications of assbaby delivery in mpreg (FFA thread)
• “How long would it take for someone to die of TB/consumption?”
• “If you vomit while drunk, do you remain drunk?” (FFA thread)

 

History of Medicine

• Kirkup, John R. The Evolution of Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History from Ancient Times to the Twentieth Century
• Prioreschi, Plinio. A History of Medicine: Roman Medicine
• Young, James Harvey, Ph.D. The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation. Available for free at Quackwatch.
• Historical burn treatment
• Historical ways to deal with a missing eye (FFA thread)
• Three pregnancies in Iron Age Ireland
• Medieval surgeons and hygiene (FFA thread)
• Wound healing in fantasy settings (FFA thread)
• Castration and amputation in history (FFA thread)
• Treating stab wounds in mid-19th-c. Western Europe (FFA thread) 

 

Violence

 

Writing Fight Scenes in General

• Resources for writing fight scenes by WriteWorld.org
• “How to write physical fights” by Yuffie
• “How to Write a Fight Scene” by Randy Ingermanson (24-pg. PDF)
• “Writing Action Scenes”
• “Writing the fight scene” by Gregory Mark Henry
• How to disarm a person while inflicting injury on them (FFA thread)
• “How to Write Martial Arts Fight Scenes” by Kisa Whipkey
• “Writing Combat” by Michael Mock
• “Writing fight scenes for fanfic” by by xxYoungFatexx, Comic Vine
• Teaching small, non-physical character how to fight (FFA thread)
• Quinn, Peyton. Bouncer's Guide to Barroom Brawling: Dealing with the Sucker Puncher, Streetfighter, and Ambusher. 1990. Recommended by a nonny.
• “Violence Is Currency: A Pacifist Ex-Con's Guide To Prison Weaponry” by Daniel Genis

 

Swords, Knives, and Other Blades

• A brief visual history of weapons
• The Arma: The Spathology of Medieval and Renaissance Sword Forms; Essays - Swords and Swordsmanship
• Development outline of medieval sword forms, c. 500-1500 CE (from above link)
• Sword Care
• A summary of how people die (and don’t) in swordfights
• Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife
• Dagger-fighting styles, 16th-c. Europe (see comment from "A_Scot_in_Texas" left at 30 Apr 2015 14:10)
• Simulated, realistic knife attack
• How to Use a Knife in a Combative Situation: 15 Steps (WikiHow) — HOWEVER, also see “Knife Lies” by Marc “Animal” MacYoung & Diana Gordon MacYoung
• Tachi swords (FFA thread) 

 

Firearms

• S.L. Huang's "Gun Basics for Writers" series:
  • The Three Rules of Gun Safety
  • Basic Civilian Small Arms, Part 1 of 2: Handguns
  • Basic Civilian Small Arms, Part 2 of 2: Long Guns
  • Modern Ammunition Basics, Part 1 of 2
  • Modern Ammunition Basics, Part 2 of 2: Caliber and Gauge
• The Box o' Truth: Testing the penetration of various rounds of ammunition.
• chn_breathmint's Guide to Writing Firearms
• Modern Firearms and Ammunition
• Internet Movie Firearms Database: Info on all the guns used in movies and TV shows
• Gun Shot Wounds: Medical info.
• Nonfatal bullet wounds (FFA thread)
• Smuggling guns into Japan (FFA thread) 

 

Military

• Writing a siege (FFA thread)
• Contents of a military depot (FFA thread)
• U.S. Army manual on using pack animals 

 

 

Death and Forensics

 

How to Kill Your Characters

• What will kill a human being in various given situations
• How to Kill Your Imaginary Friends — written by a doctor. An especially good post on cardiac arrest.
• “I need a poison that can be ingested orally, be flavourless, and which kills in a few minutes. If the symptoms are dizziness and nausea, so much the better. Help?”
• “What's a good way to kill someone relatively quickly and easily?”
• How it feels to drown, be decapitated, be electrocuted, etc.
• Being shot dead while having sex (FFA thread)
• Death by thrown object (FFA thread) 

 

Forensics

• Leading Causes of Death in the U.S., 1900-1998
• The Writer's Forensics Blog
• Forensic Pathology Index
• Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine (Trigger warning: Graphic images)
• Suite 101: Forensic Science
• Stages of Decomposition (of a pig that died of natural causes)
• Stages of Human Corpse Decomposition
• What happens to a human body after death
• Determining corpse height from skeleton analysis
• Mystery Writing is Murder
• Lee Lofland: The Graveyard Shift
• Wellcome Collection: Forensics exhibit