We tend to downplay our scoundrels, scofflaws, and poltroons as exceptions. For the past decade in my Cincinnati Curiosities blog, which is shared on the web through Cincinnati Magazine , I have attempted to expose the inconsistencies in our mythology and the shoddy underpinnings of our mythologies.
Any list on any topic is bound to be incomplete and controversial, and this roundup is no different. Obvious bores me. These are the infamous and notorious folks I find most fascinating. Each one materialized from a bottomless rabbit hole of legends, tall tales, and newspaper clippings. Handle With Care. Grave-robbing was rampant in the Queen City in the mids, and the cops and nightwatchmen had itchy trigger fingers.
Old Cunny carried a load of buckshot in one leg for most of his life. His encounters with the law were rare and his escapades legendary. On at least one occasion, Cunny propped his latest acquisition next to him on the seat of his wagon. He sold his own earthly remains to the Medical College of Ohio, where his skeleton was displayed for decades. The students set his bones atop a tombstone and stuck a spade in his hand and a pipe in his eternally grinning mouth. Although this experiment inspired new avenues for neurological research, Roberts Bartholow succumbed to public pressure and publicly apologized, opening a new chapter in the evolution of medical ethics.
Generally admired as a brilliant physician, Bartholow had a huge ego that precipitated feuds with many of his colleagues. Claiming that electricity could cure anything from hemorrhoids to nasal polyps to cysts caused by tapeworms, he used the apparatus housed in his high-voltage facility to instruct students convened in the operating theater next door.
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One day Mary Rafferty, a year-old Irish immigrant with a hole in her skull caused by an eroding cancerous ulcer, walked into this laboratory looking for help.
