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Sunday 17 July 2011

everybody must get stoned

Cutting the Stone, also called The Extraction of the Stone
of Madness or The Cure of Folly by Hieronymus Bosch
(Museo del Prado in Madrid) circa 1494

























"The great artist Hieronymus Bosch immortalized the scene of a physician trepanning the skull to remove stones in his painting The Cure of Folly, otherwise known as The Extraction of the Stone of Madness. This painting depicts the scene with a dry wit and sarcastic view of the removal of the stone of madness. The 'doctor' in the scene is wearing a funnel hat, an early symbol of madness, indicating that he is also insane. He is trepanning the skull of a patient, in order to retrieve the stone from within the patient’s skull.[...]
     Whether ridiculous or not, the practice of removing stones from the heads of the insane continued as late as the 20th century, when practitioners would produce a small stone after the procedure, stating that they had removed it from within the brain." — Elzabeth Roberts, Brain Blogger
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It is interesting to note that the word "stoned" can be attributed to any creature with testicles, especially in the context of animal husbandry. A stallion, a "stoned horse," was often considered "crazy" until it was gelded or broken.

From: An Analytical Digest of the Laws of the District of Columbia by M. Thompson, 1863
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